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

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (1301)	7/3/2000 7:43:16 AM
From: Torben Noerup Nielsen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 52153

Miljenko, Do you have any idea what NBI34060 might be in addition to a non-benzodiazepene hypnotic? If it takes the best of Sonata and Ambien and leaves out the side effects and the rebound problems with Ambien, it should be quite successfull for that reason alone. There are a lot of people with low-grade sleep problems and a drug that has side effects comparable to the placebo and provides a normal nights worth of sleep should be a blockbuster. Anyway, it now looks like the ordering should be SEPR, NBIX and then NRGN. But the impact on the stock price should be more pronounced in the case of NBIX than for SEPR due to the difference in the size of the companies. Are there other candidates in this market? Note that there is easily room for a few competing drugs; the potential market is huge. Thanks, Torben

To: Miljenko Zuanic who wrote (1301)	7/3/2000 10:00:40 AM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 52153

Miljenko, I think that the fact that the parent Zopiclone has already had a few million patient doses in Europe should weigh heavily on the FDA. The FDA has been burned a few times now by safety issues that have only shown up after a drug has been in widespread use. Your point that the FDA has never "seen" Zopiclone before is, however, valid. Further, to the extent they do see the NBIX drug as a "me too" this will help as well. Sleep trials do go pretty quickly, so perhaps the SEPR lead is only a few months. Some other stuff: The NRGN drug appears still to be in Phase I trials by their partner, PFE. SEPR is developing the other zopiclone isomer as an anxiolytic and (perhaps) anti-epileptic. They say it is non-sedating. Here are some figures (in millions) on Ambien (Searle) and Sonata (AHP, introduced in 1999) sales: 1999: Ambien $520, Sonata $30 2000E: Ambien $600, Sonata $120 2001E: Ambien $650, Sonata $250 Analysts are predicting sales of some $40MM for the SEPR drug in 2003, assuming launch in early 2003 (management projecting late 2002) and no co-promotion. Peter