sonki,
icn is not an ordinary pharma as we know - it has its own r&d but also buy developed drugs from big pharma, drugs that are effective but with a small market in here as comparing to other drugs, so the big pharma dont care to promote them - it then market these drugs in eastern europe. its founder was a former prime minister or something like that with Yogoslavia thus icn has its connection in eastern europe where big pharma dont. this is a huge market but with high risk, i.e. unstable political environment, currency, etc. most recently the risk manifests itself is the 87% drop in value in Yogoslavia currency that icn has to take a 2.5 million charge this quarter.
used to be only one analyst covered it before since it was in teens. goldman sache recently initiate coverage and put it on rec list, so now it has some solid backing. current est for 9812 is 2.15, that is a cheap p/e comparing to others.
i think going forward, icn will become the front of other big pharma who want to explore the eastern europe's market.
mrk, not sure the gap at 99 will be filled. you are talking about almost a 20% correction from this level, highly unlikely unless it has some problem with some drug, a la wla in dec.
pfe, if what i read is true, pfe inernally expects viagra will hit 2 billion mark in 2 years - that is HUGE. at least 2 more new drugs will come out in 1998, that basically guarantee pfe future earnings growth for the next 12-15 years :)
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ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc., its subsidiaries & a 39% owned equity investment ""ICN"" develop, manufacture, distribute &
sell pharmaceutical & nutritional products, research chemical & cell biology products & related services, biomedical
instrumentation & immunodiagnostic reagents & instrumentation. The Co's pharmaceuticals group is composed of a
subsidiary & an equity investment: (i) Viratek, Inc., conducts clinical research and development on compounds derived from
nucleic acids, including ribavirin (VirazoleR), a broad spectrum antiviral agent, & (ii) SPI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (""SPI""). |
