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

To: RT who wrote (5662)	2/25/1998 3:16:00 PM
From: Diamondcutter	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23519

To All ED Fans: ZONA, VVUS & Abbott are due to present at the Cowen & Co Healthcare Conference on Monday March 9 before the market opens. (ZONA has confirmed attendance, while VVUS and Abbott are "tentative"). I plan to attend. While the format of the presentation is unclear to me, it is likely that Q&A will be included. To all shorts & longs: What succinct and POLITE questions of investment significance might be posed to these companies in order to clear up some of the "misunderstanding" that appears to be out there? Diamondcutter

To: RT who wrote (5662)	2/25/1998 8:47:00 PM
From: Sycamore	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

Edderd, I appreciate your input on Viagra of PFE and of course MUSE. Don't know much about medical stuff. I'm just a small investor who is intrigue at the products useful application and of course their $$$ potentials. But, one thing though that we should be cautious about these promising drugs that are a hair away from obtaining imminent approval from the FDA, most of the time than not, and it doesn't really matter how rosy and positive the clinical study results may come out to be, they often times disappoint. For some weird reasons there is always something that causes unexpected delays and securing a straightforward approval seems to be virtually non-existent; no matter how concrete or thorough the work may have been prepared, conducted and presented. Hopefully, this doesn't happen to PFE's Viagra. I could be wrong on this, but I think the investing community have already discounted this approval to occur within a month or two which is probably the reasons why PFE's stock continues to go up to a point that it looks a bit pricey already. Otherwise, it may also fall somewhat. However, since PFE has some other successful products in the markets I doubt if Viagra's failure to secure approval, in case additional information is demanded, will make that much of an impact. Anyway, below are a few examples of major setbacks that may occur, financial wise, irrespective of favorable opinions by experts who had actively participated in clinical trials and provided analysis of the effectiveness of the various products involved. Added to it the optimistic assessments of street analysts who concluded and touted that imminent approval by the FDA were at the times near certainty. Unfortunately, in all three cases the FDA denied them recommendations and their share prices plummeted while investors lost hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars as a result. I guess what I'm trying to say is, until the FDA approval is received or written agreement is in black and white, it will be very difficult to know what Viagra's effect will be on Vivus earnings or to its stock performance for that matter. In situation like this the saying that follows come to mind. "Don't count your eggs before they are hatched." Suffice it to say that strange things happen from time to time especially if it has something that involves the FDA. A) Centocor - Centoxin for sepsis treatment wherein medical authorities who participated and follow the clinical testings and people in the know were very certain that Centoxin will be approved to become the first 2 billion dollar drug in the years that follow. Unfortunately they were proved wrong. The FDA went the other way and turned it down. Ouch! At the time, the CNTO stock was trading over $60 but fell almost instantly to single digit as soon as the FDA news became public. This happened in spite of the company's upbeat assessment of the overall process and its strong belief that the FDA's recommendation requested this time for the third time was in a way a matter of formality. Not to mention the millions of dollars on product development, testing, advertising and the time spent on building its distribution infrastructures within the country and outside the country. Additionally, almost every analyst in town believed and convinced that the FDA approval was almost a done deal. B) Xoma - E5 for sepsis treatment, same scenario above. After millions of $$$ and hours spent, the drug was also turned down by the FDA. Many years later, the company has yet to recover from the shock. Its stock was in the mid 30 at the time but immediately came down to mid-single digit that same day once the news was announced. C) Corr Thera.. - Integrilin promising test results and imminent approval was expected, but the same thing happened, the FDA turned it down last month and the stock dived from $21 to $8 1/2 in a day. Finally, and this is just an opinion, whether Viagra is approved or not, MUSE will probably continue to thrive. No doubt they'll compete, but in the end they'll probably become complimentary products. Certainly, there's a huge market out there. My apology for the long post. Happy Investing! regards, sycamore

To: RT who wrote (5662)	3/2/1998 8:52:00 AM
From: MissLil	Respond to of 23519

See my previous posts. Everyone says that there is no plan here. In my strong opinion, Pfizer has "talking points." i.e. Pill is coming, best thing ever, everything else either doesn't work or is painful. In the distant past I was involved in this type of work and it doesn't happen by chance. What could the Vivus "talking points" be: vivus is available now. It works quickly It has been used in over ?1/2 million men with few serious side effects It works for more moderate to severe ED PR is free!