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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sam who wrote (3759)	2/7/1998 11:41:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6136

sam, Monday's Barron's has an interesting article on the GLX/SBH merger and they talk about details of of future AIDS treatments, which may impact AGPH more than my posts. I'll give details shortly. My posts usually follow the news instead of predicting it. On a positive note, I think that yesterday may have kicked off the seasonal Biotech Boom, which this year seems to be running 1-2 months late. I'll also give details on that shortly also.

To: sam who wrote (3759)	2/7/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Peter Singleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6136

Sam, I've followed Henry's views on the AGPH and AMLN threads in the past. Even when his viewpoint went against the prevailing opinion on the thread (e.g., the weekend after AMLN reported PIII results, and before the the market responded), he presented his views respectfully with careful reasoning. I often, but don't always agree with his assessments, but I always appreciate his point of view. Peter p.s., don't put too much credence in his short term LGND share price projections, though .... : )

To: sam who wrote (3759)	2/7/1998 4:23:00 PM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6136

sam, Here's a reasonably positive AGPH put out by the San Diego Tribune earlier this week: Agouron to offer upbeat data on AIDS drug Thomas Kupper STAFF WRITER \| Bloomberg News contributed to this report. 03-Feb-1998 Tuesday Agouron Pharmaceuticals hopes new data this week on the effectiveness and convenience of its Viracept drug will help the company sustain its momentum in the increasingly competitive field of AIDS treatments. The San Diego company is expected to present study results today that suggest Viracept works when taken twice a day instead of the usual three doses -- offering a big improvement for AIDS patients who typically must take many medications with complicated dietary and dosing requirements. Other studies the company plans to unveil at a conference in Chicago will show that some patients continue to respond to Viracept after two years and will explore whether Viracept patients develop resistances to other AIDS drugs. The presentations by Agouron -- and competitors who also will appear -- are part of a battle for position in an AIDS market that is expected to grow to as much as $5 billion within a few years as drugs emerge and treatments continue to improve. "The big issue is that there are more and more drugs available to treat AIDS," said analyst Charles Engleberg of AmeriCal Securities. "How this is going to play out, with all of these combinations available, is unclear." Viracept, the first San Diego biotech drug to win federal approval, is a protease inhibitor, part of the "cocktails" that have dramatically improved the outlook for AIDS patients. The drug has made Agouron profitable in less than a year and has nearly overtaken Viracept's most popular competitor, a drug from Merck. In the most recent quarter, Agouron reported profits of $4.9 million on sales of $104.7 million, and since then Viracept has received approval from the European Union. But the fast-changing nature of the AIDS market was underscored yesterday by new data from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, a Massachusetts biotech with a protease inhibitor in development. The company, which hopes to seek government approval this year, said its drug appeared "highly potent" in combination with other protease inhibitors. Use of more than one protease is a trend among AIDS patients, and Agouron also will issue data on Viracept's effectiveness with other drugs. "The potency that we're seeing is unprecedented," said Joshua Boger, Vertex chief executive. "You're seeing very significant drops (in HIV levels) in even two weeks." Forums such as this week's Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections -- where Carlsbad-based Isis Pharmaceuticals also will present trial results for a drug for AIDS-related blindness -- are important because treatment regimens continue to evolve and because many HIV patients are waiting to begin treatments until more is known. Such issues as convenience and potential resistances to other drugs are important to patients who may have trouble switching once they start one drug regimen. In Agouron's study of twice-daily dosing, preliminary data showed results were comparable with those for patients who took the drug three times a day. In both cases, the virus was undetectable in 74 percent of patients after 32 weeks of treatment. Some doctors already are putting their patients on twice-a-day protease dosing, and are likely to take effectiveness at that dose into consideration when choosing a drug. "It's probably going to come out that it's safe to use any of the protease inhibitors two times a day," Engleberg said. Another study to be released today found that eight patients in a study group of 12 continued on Viracept for two years with the virus still undetectable. Because Viracept has been on the market less than a year, there is limited data on how long it works. In that study, investigators also found that patients who failed on Viracept were able to resume treatment successfully on other protease inhibitors. Agouron says a lack of so-called "cross-resistance" may be an advantage for its drug, but that is still under study. "These results suggest that in the event of treatment failure, carefully managed patients may preserve their treatment options over time," said the study's principal investigator, Dr. Martin Markowitz of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York. Agouron shares, which were hammered in the autumn as the company halted its No. 2 drug project, have rebounded 22 percent from a Dec. 11 low. The stock closed yesterday at $34.56 1/4 , down 18 3/4 cents.

To: sam who wrote (3759)	2/10/1998 8:32:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6136

sam, Here's a more positive article put out by the San Diego Union Tribune: Agouron's AIDS drug may set record DON BAUDER 08-Feb-1998 Sunday Sales of Agouron's Viracept treatment for AIDS "may set a record for first-year sales of a biotechnology product," says Jim McCamant of Berkeley's Medical Technology Stock Letter. The product was launched in mid-March of last year; it chalked up sales of $228 million during the rest of 1997, says McCamant. Sales were $91.8 million in the quarter ended in December. For the full fiscal year, which ends in June, the product should enjoy sales of $350 million, says the analyst. "This makes current market capitalization of $1.06 billion only three times sales for the current fiscal year," he says, noting that Agouron beat a competitor to market by 18 months. A couple of years ago, McCamant had said that the competitor was ahead of Agouron. He would buy the stock under $40. It has been trading around $35. Elise Wang of PaineWebber says that Agouron's Viracept has 36 percent of its market, and is the leader in dollar sales. "Viracept is being considered as the optimal first line of therapy," says Wang. Looking for the company to earn 98 cents a share in the current fiscal year, PaineWebber has the stock on its Analysts' Best Calls list.