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Biotech / Medical : TITAN PHARMACEUTICAL (TTP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Icebrg who wrote (276)	6/9/2004 2:52:46 PM
From: NeuroInvestment	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362

The fact that Peter sees it differently gives me pause, but my initial reaction out here is more akin to Eric's. Does Karabelas' Novartis connection mean that he sees genuine value where no one else could? Or is he having difficulty letting go of a program that he had championed in the past? Or both. After what, three or four years?--Pfizer is selling about $350 million worth of Geodon worldwide (annualized from 1Q:04). Another drug with QT problems but advantages in other side effect areas, particularly weight gain. I have no doubt Vanda can show efficacy, and they can probably get it approved. Novartis likely has right of first refusal to take it back and market it if they think it is worth their time, but they clearly are not all that interested, they sat on it forever until Vanda finally offered. That this is the best they can do is a negative. And assuming that (as I do) that iloperidone might at best be a 200-300 million drug, no first tier pharma is going to sell it. Which means it will be a smaller specialty sales force going up against Pfizer and all the others. I don;t think that iloperidone is going to so outshine the glut of predecessors in terms of effect on negative/cognitive sz that it will change the market dynamic. So three-four years from now, if all goes well, let's say iloperidone comes to market. As novel antipsychotic approaches (Merck/Carlsson's ACR16, Ampakines) also emerge as iloperidone tries to slowly gain marketshare, it's going to be very hard for them to be heard above the din. By that time, Titan's future will have been decided by its oncology franchise. This is my first thought about it, but I can't see it being all that meaningful to Titan. Harry NeuroInvestment