Hi Ira,
The potential market for better allergy products is huge--in the high hundreds of millions of dollars. There are millions of people who, like myself, are not well served by current allergy treatments. So, the next question is: why would HMR walk away from this market? The answer (more realistically, an educated guess) seems to be that they are giving up all their vaccine programs and getting more into genetics. They are downsizing MMR, firing personnel, and have sold part of their vaccine program to Chiron. One security analyst has suggested that HMR is also getting disillusioned with allergy products because one of MMR's major products, Seldane, is losing sales to Hismanal (both are prescription antihistames). Also, IMUL has only two allergy products ready for the 1990's, Allervax Cat and Allervax Ragweed. The others are still in the clinical stages, so even if HMR shares the bullish outlook for allergy products, the time horizon may be too distant for them.
Analysts are assuming that Allervax Cat can go to the market in 1998 and Allervax Ragweed later that year or 1999.
Paul |
