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Biotech / Medical : ICOS Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: debra vogt who wrote (767)	6/2/2000 12:13:00 PM
From: Craig Lacy	Respond to of 1139

To: Peter S. Maroulis who wrote (14758) From: Edwarda Monday, May 29, 2000 11:55 AM ET Respond to Post # 14761 of 14837 TOP NAMES FOR ANTI-IMPOTENCE DRUGS 15> Menicillin 14> Schwanzenhance 13> Wood 'n' Plenty 12> Chubbie Delight 11> BoneRite 10> Penochio 9> Presidentia 8> PharmaFluffer 7> Schwingicin-D 6> Wang Shui 5> Limpbegone 4> Erextacy 3> TriEthyl TriMary TriEthylagain 2> Phun-Phun and the Number 1 Rejected Name for an Anti-Impotence Drug... 1> I Can't Believe It's Not Rigor Mortis!

To: debra vogt who wrote (767)	6/2/2000 3:37:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1139

Nice story. I'm surprised that no mention is made of its clinical trials for treating Female Arousal Dysfunction. Potentially, that could double the candidates. +++++++++++ Story saved for archives... +++++++++++++++++ Icos The story at Icos Corp. (ICOS, news, msgs) is the company's Viagra-killer. A drug for male erectile dysfunction, code-named IC351 and recently given the brand name of Cialis by Icos and its partner Eli Lilly (LLY, news, msgs), is now in Phase 3 clinical trials that should be completed by the end of 2000. Investors should be able to see the results of those trials next year, along with an application to the Food & Drug Administration for the new compound. But I don't think the stock is going to stay near its current $35 price until the Phase 3 trials are completed. Phase II trials have shown that the drug has the potential to work better than Viagra. Extrapolating from the reports so far, it seems that IC351 works faster than Viagra and lasts longer. And IC351 so far has not caused the blue/green vision reported with Viagra. It seems that the drug is clearly going to work, and clearly will be competitive with Pfizer's (PFE, news, msgs) blockbuster. The real question is about something called nitrate interaction. A significant percentage of the male population using Viagra has heart conditions, and some of those patients with heart conditions have died after using Viagra. If IC351 showed a significantly lower degree of nitrate interaction than Viagra does -- and this is possible, because the drug relies on a different, more specific mechanism than does Viagra -- then doctors would have an important reason to prefer it. As Robertson Stephens' Jay Silverman put it in a May 1 report on the stock, "Cialis is a $500 million drug (in annual sales) without the nitrate benefit, and a $1 billion-$2 billion blockbuster with it." Eli Lilly and Icos have been keeping the nitrate interaction data very confidential, but I expect that the story will get clearer as the year progresses. And I expect the story to get more publicity through investment conferences, such as the upcoming Paine Webber growth and technology conference, where Icos will present on June 7. I'd suggest starting to build a position in this one sometime this summer with a target of $60 for early 2001.