To all who didn't listen to the call:
Here is what I got out of the call, correct me if I am wrong (I missed the first 15 minutes):
Right now Vivus is in a race to build up supply for the coming consumer ad campaign which is going to begin in February, along with some increase in awareness to physicians too. This ad campaign is VERY IMPORTANT for Vivus, and will increase demand substantially. Right now they are pretty close to being on schedule. The slowdown occurred end of Nov. and beginning of Dec. due to the mixing of new personnel with old equipment. The new line should be up soon and they should be running at regular production without problems in Q1. As for the shutdown, they needed to do it anyway to clean and fix, as in any other normal year. The peak scripts that they had were 17,000 per week, and now they are down to 10,000 per week, as with any other drug that just hits the market and then has no ads behind it. The is NO change in demand since hitting the 10,000 script plateau, and 10,000 scripts per week is "phenomenal" and "stable". The reason they are down is due to the inability to reach to the consumers. What they make, they are shipping. When complete, they will have 4 lines, 2 old, instead of just 3. With the new building, they will have capacity of 8 lines running.
Also, so far, Viagra has been used for "enhancement" instead of the worst case scenario, where MUSE comes in. The only other way to fix it is with injection, besides MUSE that is.
One last thing about the buyback. So far, they have bought 400,000 shares of the 2,000,000 share buyback, and will continue to buy back and keep us updated in the 10-Q's.
This is what I got out of it, correct and add if I am wrong.
Your friend (hopefully),
Evan Dimmer |
