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Biotech / Medical : Merck -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EepOpp who wrote (524)	2/19/1998 10:33:00 PM
From: Nick	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580

I'm not sure about their other new products, but I think this Propecia drug will be huge! Nick

To: EepOpp who wrote (524)	2/20/1998 8:31:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1580

Unfortunately, many of the analysts that comment on MRK have MBA's not backgrounds in Pharmacology. The MRK pipeline is not going to dry up and MRK disappear from the face of the earth in five years. Many of these same analysts were prognosticating in 1993/1994 during Mrs. Clinton's Universal Healthplan proposal that MRK and all the drug companies were going to be squeezed out of business. Instead MRK has gone from $28 or so at its low back then to its current level. Crixivan, Propecia, less than a year old, being sold now. This year will in all likelihood bring an updated HBV vaccine, improved B2 agonist for asthma, HIV vaccine, and a COX2 inhibitor to name a few. Throughout its history, MRK has always had drugs going off patent and new ones comming on patent. In my opinion, the reason MRK is really moving now is that the analysts are seeing that all their talk about MRK not having new products (which they stated spewing forth about two years ago) is wrong. Of course they probably will not come out and say that.

To: EepOpp who wrote (524)	2/20/1998 11:56:00 PM
From: Sunny Chu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1580

To give you some insight, Merck is a company that will not work on a drug that has less then 300 million in sales per year. They are very picky as to what they develop. Aside from that, they spend probably the most money in R&D in this industry. Secondly, try looking in their history of drugs. I don't think that you are going to find much problems there. Thirdly, Merck is a company that tries to develop their own drugs rather than collaborate with other companies and pay them a royalty. Hope this insight can be of help to you. Sunny

To: EepOpp who wrote (524)	2/21/1998 2:22:00 AM
From: Jerry Miller	Respond to of 1580

i think you also have to consider what technology has done for discovery. down from 17 years...approaching 2.

To: EepOpp who wrote (524)	2/23/1998 9:30:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Respond to of 1580

Well Will, I thought you might get a little chuckle out of this quote. We were just talking about MRK and its pipeline a few days ago. It looks like the analysts that were saying MRK didn't have much of a pipeline are seeing the error of their ways. "Gruntal & Co analyst David Saks on Friday said Singulair had the potential to be the best drug in its class, with peak annual sales of $500 million. Saks raised his 12-month target price on Merck to $150, saying the company's drug pipeline was among the best in the industry. He expressed confidence that the New Jersey drug giant would announce a three-for-one stock split during its annual meeting in April."