THE company best known for creating Dolly the Sheep was offered for sale yesterday after plans to rebuild the embattled firm failed to attract backing.

Former stock market star PPL Therapeutics made the move as it announced that chief executive Geoff Cook and a handful of senior directors are to step down, and posted results showing losses more than doubling.

The decision to sell marks the end of a revival strategy, which saw PPL turn its back on the cloning business that made it famous.

PPL made the headlines in 1996 after the birth of Dolly, the world's first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

Dolly, who died aged six in February this year, was at the centre of global debates over the ethics of cloning.

The news that PPL is to go on sale comes three months after the Edinburgh group was forced to put its emphysema and cystic fibrosis treatment programme on hold and slash its workforce from 161 to only 55.

Results for the first half of this year published yesterday showed pre-tax losses more than doubling to £13.5m in the first six months of the year after absorbing an £8.1m expense from its restructuring programme.