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Biotech / Medical : Pharmacyclics (PCYC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zeev Hed who wrote (258)	1/22/1998 1:12:00 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 717

Zeev: From an article at PCYC's web site: "PDT has been used experimentally to treat many types of cancer, such as of the lung, esophagus, and bladder, and non-cancerous diseases such as cutaneous viral infections, psoriasis, and certain diseases of the retina. Recently, the first approval of a drug for this application was granted by the FDA for Photofrin IIr for use in treating obstructing carcinoma of the esophagus. This agent has been approved for use in Canada for the prophylaxis of papillary bladder cancer and in Japan for the treatment of esophageal, endobronchial, stomach, cervical, and bladder cancer." A serious problem with Photofrin (QLTF) is that patients become photosensitive and have to stay out of the sun. This is not a problem with PCYC's Lu-Tex. A significant difference between Lutrin (Lu-Tex)and Miravant's drug is that Lutrin is preferentially absorbed by tumor cells, whereas Miravants' drug is preferentially cleared by non-tumor cells. This means you have to wait a few days after giving the drug in Miravant's case before applying the light, whereas you only have to wait a few hours for Lutrin, and the whole procedure can be done in one day. From the point of view of side-effects, preferential absorption seems intuitively better than preferential clearance. For a new treatment modality like PDT, competition is not necessarily bad. A better drug a year or two later may actually do better than if it was first out of the gate. If the early promise of PDT pans out, I have no concerns about the market size. This area of PCYC should get more attention this year when several NCI sponsored trials are scheduled to begin: From the recent prospectus: The NCI has announced its intention to fund at least five clinical studies of LUTRIN for additional cancer indications, including primary cancers of the bladder, esophagus, head and neck region, pancreas and ovaries, which the Company expects to begin in the second half of 1998. Also from the prospectus: The Company intends initially to seek FDA approval for the use of LUTRIN in photodynamic therapy for patients with invasive surface cancers that are accessible to externally applied light, such as recurrent breast cancer (involving the skin or subcutaneous tissue) and melanoma. These diseases affect more than 40,000 patients per year in the United States. Additional indications for the use of LUTRIN include internal cancers such as cancer of the lung, esophagus, colon, rectum, prostate, head and neck region and genitourinary tract. -- So the market size for the initial cancer indication is likely in the $200m/yr range, with much bigger markets like lung and colon a later possibility. Personally I would like PCYC if it only had its radiation sensitizer, which appears to have little competition and I think is an easier product to sell than PDT, which neeeds laser equipment as well as drugs. However take a look at Miravant's market cap, for a product that I think probably isn't as good as Lutrin, although it is further along the approval process. The stock has been kind of weak since the offering was announced, and my guess at this point is that it will probably stay that way until the offering is completed. Does anyone know how their presentation at H&Q went? Peter