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Biotech / Medical : Cyberonics (cybx) epilepsy therapy recommonded -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Valentin who wrote (189)	3/17/1998 10:33:00 PM
From: Valentin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 471

Interesting Information worth to be read carefully. Here is a very interesting statement. I found it in the Motley Fool Tread about Cyberonics. The Author is RobGFool. I am not very pleased about the contents. But it is certainly worth to be read carefully. " A few things worry me about this company. The device is very expensive and most patients with epilepsy are on Medicare or Medicade and reimbursment to the hospital and the physician is marginal at best. Most can't and won't pay 15-20K (device+physician+hospital) out of pocket. For those who have private insurance (HMO or whatever) this is exactly the sort of high ticket item they will try and deny overage for. The device is not curative of seizures, only paliative (1/3 have >50% reduction in seizure frequency, 1/3 have some less well defined benefit, 1/3 have no benefit according to the studies), and has some significant side effects. All patients experience hoarsness and some have pain while the device is stimulating. Some patients, particularly young ones, don't like a scar on the neck and a relatively thick lumpunder the chest from the device. Tha battery life is 3-5 years, ow many patients will want multiple surgery. Also, who does the company expect to place these devices. At their first educational symposium in Colorado Springs after FDA approval they invited moslty neurologist who treat patients with epilepsy (there are relatively many of these) who can't do surgery, and only a few neurosurgeons with an interest and expertice in epilepsy surgery (very few of these guys). I guessthey are hoping that general surgeons and private "general" neurosurgeons will implant these things at the request of the eurologists, but I don't think it is going to work that way. The reimbursement for the surgeon is relatively small (about 1K) and these are high maintenance patients which most of these surgeons have traditionally avoided to refer to specialized centers. So most of these devices will be placed in special Epilepsy Surgery Centers (which if you ask the experts they would advocate the use of this device only by experiences epilepsy doctors) and there are maybe 60 such places in the country. I bet if you check with the busiest centers such as the Cleveland Clinic or the one in Minnesota you will find they are anticipating putting in 20 to 40 a year or less. Most centers are not nearly as busy. If they sell 1200 a year I would be impressed. At a unit price of 9000 can the company survive on 10 mil of revinue a year? The device has its role in some select epilepsy patients, not in vast numbers of them. I like the device and hope to be able to keep using it in the future. My hope is they are bought out by some larger medical devices company such as Metronics. Maybe they will find a use for the device that has a larger potential market in people who will want to and will be able to pay for it. The running joke in Colorado Springs was that this device can improve your golf score - if only it did. Now if you want a biotech company with good long term prospects check GLIA." Comments are welcome.