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

To: Ian@SI who wrote (1102)	10/19/2000 6:29:16 PM
From: Al Collard	Respond to of 1321

Upcoming events: 1. AOO meeting starts this Friday. Visudyne is likely to have a high profile. The subgroup analysis of the one-year VIP data, which shows Visudyne does lead to a treatment benefit, as measured by secondary end points such as a loss of six lines of vision or more, is likely to be presented. This data is likely to increase the ophthalmologist enthusiasm for this patient population, although an approval would require positive data from the trial which will start early next year. 2. The RUC committee meets in October. They are likely to set a reimbursement level for physicians (not for the drug - which has already been determined), which could be implemented in January. This will further clarify the reimbursement situation and alleviate street concerns regarding profitability of doing the procedure. 3. Pathologic myopia approval should occur in the February time frame. This will add an additional 50,000 world wide to "on label indications" for Visudyne. Based on our estimates that predominantly classic AMD patients (the current approved indication) represent 20-40% of the overall AMD population, this new approval will expand the "on label" patient base by 25-50%. Since pathologic myopia patients live much longer and the disease has a high recurrence rate, the average number of treatments used in these patients is likely to be higher than that used in AMD. VALUATION: QLT is trading at 44x 2002E EPS versus 52x for the biotech sector. Since QLT's growth is much higher than the sector's growth (128% versus 26%), it should have a much higher multiple. QLT is also trading at 30x 2003 estimates, whereas the P/E multiple for other biotech companies becoming profitable for the first time in 2001 is at 44x 2003 EPS estimates.