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Biotech / Medical : QLT PhotoTherapeutics (QLTI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (667)	10/8/1999 3:13:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1321

Another house starts QLT with a strong Buy. QLT Photother. QLTI HCFP/Brenner Sec Strong Buy QLT Phototherapeutics Rated New 'Strong Buy' at HCFP/Brenner Princeton, New Jersey, Oct. 8 (Bloomberg Data) -- QLT Phototherapeutics Inc. (QLTI US) was rated ''strong buy'' in new coverage by analyst Samuel Gerszonowicz at HCFP/Brenner Securities. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ QLT PhotoTherapeutics Looking to Go It Alone: Bloomberg Forum New York, Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- QLT PhotoTherapeutics Inc.'s shares have risen more than six-fold in the last year as the Canadian biotech company partnered with Novartis AG, the world's No. 2 drugmaker, on a drug to treat a type of blindness. The company may be ready to go solo. Julia Levy, QLT's president and chief executive, said the Vancouver-based company could decide to market future products on its own, and may establish its own sales force. ''We're probably not necessarily looking to partnering in future for any of our other products, so you'll see us become a more fully integrated company,'' Levy told the Bloomberg Forum. QLT and CIBA Vision, a unit of Novartis, said a U.S. Food and Drug Administration subcommittee next month will review the application for Visudyne, a light-activated drug for the treatment of a degenerative eye disease that is the leading cause of blindness in older Americans. QLT said if the drug is approved in 2000, it could report its first profit in 2001. ''It's a brand-new therapy for a disease that's becoming a major public health concern and one for which there is no adequate treatment,'' Levy said. ''We have very little competition for treating this disease.'' About 200,000 people in the U.S. suffer from the disease, called wet age-related macular degeneration. It makes blood vessels leak in the eye, causing scar tissue to form which leads to blindness. It's the most common cause of severe vision loss in people over 50. Levy said studies have shown that Visudyne stabilizes the eyesight in most people and about 16 percent of patients have improvement in their vision at the end of 12 months. Light-Activated Drugs The success of Visudyne makes QLT believe there are other uses for the technology it focuses on: light-activated drugs. The photo-dynamic drugs are injected into a patient and accumulate in the eye. Lasers are then used to activate the drugs. ''The activation of the drugs releases a very active form of oxygen that's very toxic to cells,'' she said. ''When you have this combination of selective accumulation in abnormal tissue, activation by light, and destruction of the abnormal tissue, you have a very elegant and non-invasive form of surgery.'' QLT first used the technology in treating cancer, but could move into other diseases, Levy said. ''There's a lot of opportunity for this technology,'' she said. ''Although it started with cancer, I think the future holds a very broad array of opportunities for this therapy.'' QLT shares have risen to 86 5/16 this week from 11 1/4 in the past year. While QLT's success has come from developing drugs and then selling them through partnerships with larger pharmaceutical companies, Levy wants to move beyond that. ''We saw ourselves as a research-and-development company exclusively with really no legitimacy for taking it further than clinical trials and then co-marketing or co-developing our drugs,'' she said. ''We're certainly looking at opportunities to grow our company through merging or acquiring other technologies,'' she said.