Just a couple of points to add to Margie's post of Larry Moss's conference call summary.
As Larry says, Kent Snyder said they expect Viracept sales to grow in the US Q4 FY 1998, and throughout FY 99. He gave guidance that they expect $350-360M in US sales for FY 98. Since they have $257M sold through Q3 ($79.5M Q1, $84.5M Q2, $93M Q3), that's not a great leap of faith, of course, since that would put their public forecast at $93-103M for Q4.
Given their stated desire to under-promise and under-deliver, and the quarter to quarter increases in sales so for (Q1 to Q2 +$5M, 6% increase, and Q2 to Q3, +$8.5, 10% increase), $100-105M (+$7-12M, 8%-13% increase) in Q4 US sales seems aggressive, but achievable. Maybe a responsible analyst would peg a number of about $100M as a starting estimate, pending more data.
Also, fyi, Snyder or Steve Cowell commented they are adding to the sales force in the US to get more market coverage. Snyder had given some compelling market analysis in their analyst day in San Francisco in January, where he discussed their market research which showed that Viracept's market share varied significantly by physician type (higher prescribing HIV specialists prescribed with a higher degree of frequency), and by geography ... giving them clear targets for increasing market penetration.
Peter |
