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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spekulatius who wrote (14174)	3/25/2002 2:20:10 AM
From: MechanicalMethod	Respond to of 78595

Sitting at 60 MRK has a better chance of going to 120 than to zero.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (14174)	3/25/2002 10:25:05 AM
From: Bob Rudd	Respond to of 78595

Spek: Thanks for the MRK/Zocor insight...that's beyond most estimate horizons so doesn't show up in nearterm multiples. When it goes generic, 80% of that biz could go out the window fast. If revenues grow @10% over the next 5 years, Zocor would be a bit over 10% if it were to hit $10B by then. Loss of that shouldn't jeopardize survival given the visibility and time to prepare, but growth over coming decade will well below recent history. As the Red Queen told Alice, "It will take all the running you can do to stay in place. If you want to go somewhere else, you will have to run twice as fast." Hope you're right on SGP, I'm slightly underwater on small initial position.

To: Spekulatius who wrote (14174)	3/25/2002 1:01:38 PM
From: Bob Rudd	Respond to of 78595

Spek: According to just filed K: The FDA also granted an additional six months of market exclusivity in the United States to ..SNIP.. Zocor from its December 2005 basic patent expiration until June 2006, in response to supplemental new drug applications the Company filed on pediatric studies. Not that this belies the basic point of your post...most of the profits are going away in a few years. It seems that big Pharma's focus in recent years has shifted more toward tweaking and legal tactics from creative R&D. BMY is really a poster child for this, but all seem to be doing it. Mature end-game stuff. Also found this in an older [May/2000] BW article: <<Several of Merck & Co.'s (MRK) top moneymakers -- Vasotec, Prinivil, Pepsid, and Prilosec -- are on the verge of losing patent protection, which allows generic-drug makers to sell knock-offs at a fraction of the branded drug's price. In all, patents on five drugs accounting for 25% of Merck's U.S. sales are slated to expire over the next three years. That would likely erode its profit growth dramatically, analysts agree>> businessweek.com Also found this helpful, but slightly out of date [8/2001] table: bamcoalition.org