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Biotech / Medical : Depotech(depo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Biomaven who wrote (325)	12/4/1997 5:25:00 PM
From: Tom D	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 887

Looking past DepoCyt... To directly answer your question, naloxone is a commonly-used opiate antagonist which works IV or IM. It is available in generic formulations and is inexpensive (about $11 for a dose). This medication is kept at most nursing stations in hospitals. It is what we use when we guess wrong with our analgesia. This is no obstacle at all. Clearly, a lot remains to be proven about DepoMorph. However, I read one recent analyst's report on DEPO earlier this week who, surprisingly, thought DEPO probably would NOT partner DepoMorph because he thought the clinical trials would be relatively inexpensive, in contrast to DepoAmikacin, for example. I tend to share Baird's sentiments about the "take the money and run" strategy. My situation is a little unusual, in that I own a day's worth of trading volume. It happens that on December 19, the trading volume will probably exceed 1 million shares. It is a rare opportunity to lighten my very aggressive position without working against myself. But, if you read the NSTA thread, Scott had a nightmarish experience with NSTA. I invited him to take a look a DEPO because it offers him a chance to record some short-term capital gains in time to offset his short-term capital losses from NSTA in this tax year. His circumstance is different from mine. I already need to do unprecedented (for me) charitable contributions this year, even before any DEPO effect. My best tax strategy would be to reassess the situation in 1998. So, I am still open-minded. Bottom line: personal circumstances and investment time-frames will probably dictate what people do after the 18th, more than any omniscient prediction about how little or great or brief or long the post-approval selloff will be. Best Regards, and its good to hear from Baird again, Tom D

To: Biomaven who wrote (325)	12/5/1997 1:35:00 AM
From: Dave K	Respond to of 887

Looking past Depocyte - Part 2: Peter: forgive me if I misunderstood your question but isn't the whole concept behind Depomorph to a.) reduce the very side effects that I believe you are alluding to, and b.) to reduce the combined equipment/people costs associated with setting up PCA procedures ? Whether the concept works or not remains but I can't believe they did not weigh your concerns prior to embarking on this lengthy exercise. I feel they deserve more credit, based on my knowledge of the company. Anyone checked the DEA stats on morphine use ?.

To: Biomaven who wrote (325)	12/5/1997 3:01:00 AM
From: Czechsinthemail	Respond to of 887

Peter, While I think Tom D and Dave K have responded to your concerns about DepoMorph, I would only add that one advantage of the DepoFoam formulation is that it affords a way of providing sustained medication over time without having so much peak-and-valley variation in concentrations. This should help alleviate the problem of patients being alternately overmedicated then undermedicated because of the difficulties in maintaining an effective morphine concentration. DepoMorph should be formulated to provide a fairly steady level of morphine, so once a sufficient analgesic level is discovered it can then be maintained over time. Baird

To: Biomaven who wrote (325)	12/5/1997 7:49:00 AM
From: chirodoc	Respond to of 887

<<<<<My concern here is that there's no way to "undo" an injection, and this seems to go against the trend towards patient controlled analgesia .......docs would not use long acting morphine until they had used short term for a period of time and found the patient tolerated it well and required long term analgesia. ......think about it--who needs long term morphine? someone with a LOT of pain. imho they would have been on morphine and other meds for a long a sustained trial before going to extended dose. ...lots of people have implanted analgesia--same problem. they will not surgically implant a device to deliver long term meds until it has been decided that patient needs it and tolerates it. depomorph would not be given at the first sign of discomfort.