Tokyo & thread - Viagra news
Tokyo - it's nice to know that your goal is the truth. I got real active on this thread about a year ago when, as you probably know, Asensio launched his completely bogus attack - which was immediately supported with an INCREDIBLE number of posts by Wexler & his devotees. Where were you when all of this was going on? Do you not think that major press releases from a stock market analyst, which were all BS & have been proven so, completely dwarf any statement that Zonagen has issued in terms of inaccuracy??
Of course it is important that there were no royalties reported in the 3rd quarter & of course I wish there had been. However, here's a hypothetical that fits the data. It seems that the $167,000 royalty for June covered (at least) 4 months. So it is possible that the monthly royalty could be near $40K. Is that bad? I don't know - if that figure had been reported first would we have been happy or sad? I took the reported figure & ran with only half of it - so maybe I should have used 1/4 instead - I thought I made it abundantly clear that it was an ASSUMPTION - now you attached all sorts of implications involving lies, distortions, etc. Lighten up please all of this is conjecture - except for major milestones - which ZONAGEN HAS MET CONSISTENTLY FOR THE LAST 18 MONTHS.
Some people (decidedly short) on this thread extrapolate the recent royalty info to mean that the entire company is a flop - for the outright purpose of scaring some out of the issue. Forgive me, but you seem to one of those that is always right there to interpret things negatively.
Now for the news I promised - in case anyone missed it...
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November 25, 1998
Pfizer and FDA Agree to New Warnings
On Labels for Viagra After 130 Deaths
By ROCHELLE SHARPE and ROBERT LANGRETH
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators and Pfizer Inc. agreed to a host of
new warnings for Viagra and said that 130 men have died taking the
impotence drug since it went on the market in April.
The new labels will caution patients to use the popular blue pill with care if
they have a history of heart disease, blood-pressure problems or certain
eye disorders, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Pfizer said.
The labels also will warn doctors against prescribing Viagra or other
impotence treatments to men who shouldn't have sex because of heart
disease or other cardiovascular problems.
The new label also addresses the problem of prolonged, painful erections,
called priapisms. It will explain that they rarely occur but will urge patients
to seek prompt medical attention if their erections last longer than four
hours.
The FDA said that 70% of the men who died while using Viagra had one
or more risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Sixteen of the men had
taken nitrates, which the FDA and Pfizer had previously warned shouldn't
be taken with the drug.
"We consider the drug to be safe and effective," said Lisa Rarick, head of
the FDA's division of reproductive and urologic products, noting that
labeling updates frequently occur with new drugs. Overall, more than six
million prescriptions have been written for Viagra.
"We think these are common-sense guidelines" for using the drug, said
Pfizer spokesman Andrew McCormick. Company officials said the new
labeling essentially makes more explicit the existing warnings about using
the drug.
The company said it plans to continue its consumer advertising efforts and
that it is too early to tell whether sales will be hurt. But some analysts see a
key challenge for Viagra. Hemant Shah, a pharmaceutical industry analyst
in New Jersey, said the new warnings "will make it very difficult" for Pfizer
to increase sales through consumer advertising since the risks will probably
have to be mentioned in advertisements.
U.S. sales of Viagra surged shortly after the product was introduced, but
declined sharply over the summer because of patient worries about side
effects. Viagra sales for the third quarter were $141 million, down from
more than $400 million in the second quarter.
In the last several weeks, the volume of domestic prescriptions has
remained essentially flat in the last several weeks, despite extensive
consumer advertising.
The new label warns that doctors should use caution prescribing the drug
to the kinds of patients excluded from clinical trials, including men who
suffered a heart attack, stroke, or life-threatening irregular heart rhythms
within the previous six months, as well as patients with a history of cardiac
failure or coronary artery disease. Patients with uncontrolled high-blood
pressure and those with uncontrolled low-blood pressure also were
excluded from clinical trials and should use the drug cautiously.
The new label will also highlight a warning on the existing label about
patients with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease of the retina.
"Some men left out of clinical trials certainly aren't candidates for elective
therapy," Ms. Rarick said. "We just want to make sure doctors aren't
giving these patients elective therapy without a lot of thought." She said
adverse-event reports had not shown "anything alarming" involving eye
changes. |
