IVX good article from Miami here
<<Ivax to buy fast-growing Wakefield
Shares fall on rumors FDA won't approve drug
BY MICHELE CHANDLER
mchandler@herald.com
Laying the groundwork for the upcoming sale of its asthma medications in the United States, Miami pharmaceutical company Ivax Corp. will buy fast-growing Wakefield Pharmaceuticals of Alpharetta, Ga., for an undisclosed sum.
Wakefield sells respiratory products to physicians and was ranked among the 500 fastest growing companies by Inc. magazine last year. The all-stock purchase will add slightly to Ivax's earnings, said company vice chairman Neil Flanzraich.
Even with that news, Ivax's stock price -- which has soared more than fourfold since January -- tumbled Friday on industry rumors that the Food and Drug Administration will not approve Ivax's generic version of an anti-cancer drug made by pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Ivax shares fell $4 Friday to close at $45.75.
Wall Street analysts said Flanzraich called them personally to dispel the rumors.
Ivax executives have high hopes for their generic version of the brand-name drug Taxol, which is Bristol-Myers' second-biggest-selling medication, with sales of $2 billion expected this year. The drug is approved in the United States for treatment of ovarian cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer and for an AIDS-related cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma.
Flanzraich called analysts to tell them ``what he was hearing, and that it was untrue,'' said Edward Tavlin, who follows Ivax for the investment firm of Fahnestock & Co. in Hallandale.
Tavlin -- who had not heard the rumor before Flanzraich's telephone call -- said short sellers, who bet on stock prices to fall, may have initiated the rumors.
``I see no reason for the FDA to turn the drug down. It has been approved in other countries,'' Tavlin said.
Bristol-Myers, which filed an unsuccessful patent challenge to block Ivax's drug, would not have put up such a ferocious fight ``if there was any question about the drug's efficacy,'' Tavlin said. ``But you can scare the daylights out of the market, and that's what happened.''
Said Flanzraich: ``I'm sure it will blow away and we will recover.'' He said Ivax expects the drug to be approved soon, he said.
The company's asthma drugs, meanwhile, are not expected to be approved for about two years. But Ivax's purchase of Wakefield will give the company time to integrate operations.
Wakefield's 50-member sales force, which now sells Wakefield's respiratory products, will begin selling Ivax's brand name asthma products. The first product is expected to receive U.S. approval in late 2002 or early 2003, Flanzraich said.
Ivax's asthma products are already strong sellers in Europe.
In June, Ivax acquired Venezuela's Laboratorios Elmor, a Caracas firm that develops and sells a broad range of medicines. >>
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