Icos Rises Amid Hopes for Prospects of Drug to Rival Viagra
Bloomberg News
March 23, 1999, 3:53 p.m. ET
Icos Rises Amid Hopes for Prospects of Drug to Rival Viagra
Bothell, Washington, March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Shares in Icos
Corp., a biotech company whose biggest shareholder is Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates, rose as much as 14 percent amid hopes for
the success of an experimental impotence drug it's developing.
Icos rose 3 7/16 to 36 3/4 in late trading of 2.2 million
shares, more than six times the three-month daily average.
Earlier, it reached a record high of 38 1/8.
Icos will present data next month at a medical meeting in
Stockholm on its impotence treatment, which could compete with
Pfizer Inc.'s blockbuster impotence pill Viagra. While the
results are only from the second of three phases of testing
needed to get regulatory approval for the product, investors are
hoping that drug being developed by Icos and drugmaker Eli Lilly
& Co. will prove to have fewer side effects than Viagra.
''In an immature market like the one for impotence drugs,
swings in market share can be big,'' said Sergio Traversa, an
analyst with Mehta Partners. ''If they've got a small advantage,
the drug may have definitely have a rapid uptake and grab
significant market share.''
Investigators will discuss data from Phase II trials of the
ICOS drug, which is dubbed IC351, at the April 7 to 11 meeting of
the European Urology Association in Stockholm, said Icos
spokeswoman Lacy Fitzpatrick.
'Significant Improvement'
Icos released preliminary data from that trial in September.
The company said the 44-patient overseas study found that men who
received the drug had ''significant improvement'' in their
ability to achieve an erection over men treated with a placebo.
On Thursday, the AFX financial wire service reported that
French urologist Albert Leriche said that IC351 could win
approval within a year or two. He also said the drug can enable
users to achieve an erection for a 24-hour period, far longer
than Viagra.
It's too early to comment on the duration of the drug's
effect because the company has yet to determine correct dosage,
Fitzpatrick said. Icos and Lilly hope to begin Phase III
trials of the drug by the end of this year.
The Icos drug appears to be the only strong threat to
Viagra, which quickly became a part of pop culture following its
April 1998 introduction, thanks to record-breaking demand for the
drug, said Traversa, who has a ''buy'' recommendation on Icos
shares.
IC351 was specifically designed to cause an erection, which
means it's less likely to unexpected side effects, Traversa said.
''You would be able to have the same efficacy at lower
doses. It should have a better side effect profile than Viagra,''
he said.
Icos was founded in 1990 by George Rathmann, a co-founder of
Amgen Inc., the world's biggest biotechnology firm.
Other Directors
Besides Gates, other directors at Icos include Walter
Wriston, former CEO of Citicorp; Frank Cary, former CEO of
International Business Machines Corp.; and James Ferguson, former
CEO of General Foods Corp.
AmeriCal Securities analyst Charles Engelberg said that all-
star lineup has made Icos shares more attractive than merited by
its pipeline of drug candidates, none of which has approval.
''All the tech players want to do biotech and they buy this
one because Bill Gates owns it,'' Engelberg said. ''Just look at
the ($1.5 billion) market cap. It's just crazy considering that
we don't know that anything they have will become a drug.'' |
