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

To: LoLoLoLita who wrote (3534)	12/12/1997 7:13:00 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

- You're right about the anti-takeover if someone goes over 20% ownership. Hope Merck goes for it anyway. -- In going over the 10k, for 12/31/96, noticed a little accumulated deficit of around $66 million. -- ON 12/31/97, the deficit will be around $26 mill. Amazring how far this company has come in 1 year. -- More amazing is that the stock price was higher back then. Out.

To: LoLoLoLita who wrote (3534)	12/12/1997 8:11:00 PM
From: Zebra 365	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 23519

David, you are absolutely right that these drugs will be prescribed together. First, the patient will obviously go for the pill. So a thousand patients will go home with Viagra. A certain percentage of these, (unknown %) will try it a few times and call back to the Doctor, "no Tarzan here." The next step will be MUSE, which will probably be ADDED to Viagra because they have a different mechanism of action, not just a different delivery system. (Phosphodiesterase inhibitor vs. Prostaglandin 1) You can bet that Vivus will be doing additive studies once Viagra is released. Theoretically, the combination of the two should work better than either alone. And the added kick is that all the money that PFE spends on marketing Viagra will improve the demand for MUSE. I once again point out how tight lipped they were on the conference call about plans to market to the primary physician, Leland has a plan and he doesn't want it to get out. So I did a little market test today. Called 10 of my acquaintances who are primary care physicians. 2 of 10 knew there was a urethral suppository, one knew the name MUSE. There are about 280,000 primary care physicians in this country, if the market is anything like my survey, then a flat number of new prescriptions is not likely the sign of a saturated market. My point is still that the real market ramp-up has yet to happen for MUSE. So, production slips 25% for one quarter, and the stock loses 70% of its market value in 60 days. No, it's not production that is the problem here, it is still the market perception that this (ED treatment)is a Zero sum game, and MUSE must lose for Viagra to win. All I can say is that my personal experience (as a primary physician) says differently. MUSE has all of a very small pie right now, when Viagra is introduced, they will share the pie, but the pie will be ten times the size. Even our resident PFE sage, BigKNY3, agrees with that. (I'll probably get some sort of argument anyway <g>) If you really think that VVUS is a scam and the Management has been concealing things (like, so they can sell more stock? with 80 million cash in the bank?) then short it at twelve, for it will go to 0. What you heard in their voices in the CC was not fear, it was anger. They built a company from 0 to 100 million in sales in three quarters, made millions for shareholders, and now get castigated because production slipped 25% while trying to build a factory (and doing it) in one year, which should reasonably take eighteen months to two years. Why? Because their stock was bought by a lot of people who apparently didn't know that a stock that can double, can also halve, just as quick. And I mean brokers and analysts as well as retail buyers. And these folks sold on Fear, now they want to blame someone. Well folks it ain't GE and it ain't PFE. It is a whupass little stock that can break yer stem when she sunfishes. Now I'm gonna go up to my favorite bar (off call for the first time in three weeks) have me a cold beer and some oysters, and read the sign behind the bar that reads...... *THANK YOU FOR NOT WHINING* And I mean that to this board, there has been very little whining here. Failing is not permanent, giving up..... is. Zebra