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Biotech / Medical : VVUS: VIVUS INC. (NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mc who wrote (2736)	11/20/1997 11:34:00 PM
From: BigKNY3	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 23519

Gary: Here's my best answers to your questions: 1. Do you feel that Viagra will have a high enough failure rate to leave a substantial portion of the market to MUSE and other treatments? Yes. Erectile dysfunction is too complex to be 100% responsive for any one therapy. That is a given. Accordingly, depending on the cause of ED, Viagra will be effective in up to 81% in ED patients. This will leave a significant opportunity for other therapies. 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, then will that portion be at least as big as it is now? Real tough question! We'll probably know the answer sometime in late 1998. However, if you assume that only 5% of ED patients currently seek treatment, the number of ED patients seeking treatment should significantly jump with increased patient awareness due to interest in the oral drugs. Just ask any urologist and primary care physicians today....some previously silent patients are already coming forth looking for ED treatment. My best guess is that Vivus will eventually have a larger market and niche for MUSE with the approval of Viagra. That's why it is somewhat surprising the large number of negative Viagra misinformation placed on this Board. Admittedly, most investors do not understand the dynamics of the healthcare market. They incorrectly assume that an oral ED agent will totally eliminate all other therapies. 3. And last, there are many different rumors about the target study group in the Viagra trials. Initially it was thought that they were all impotent due to non-physical reasons. Now it seems the more recent comments coming out are that the group was mixed and that Viagra was effective on organically impotent men as well. Which of these do you believe to be true? I don't like making my investing decisions based on rumors. I always try to find the available facts. The best Viagra data available so far was revealed at the October 30, 1997 Pfizer R&D meeting. A major brokerage house published the following summary data from the Viagra database of 4,500 patients and concluded "Viagra efficacy is impressive and side effects are unusually low." Although this broker may be biased to support its current position, this is real data that has been submitted to the FDA. The spinal cord data is particulary remarkable. ED Cause % Responders ................ Placebo...Viagra Mixed .......... 27%.....74% Organic.......... 16%.....59% Psychogenic...... 30%.....81% Diabetes......... 12%.....48% Spinal Cord...... 0%.....75% BigKNY3