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Biotech / Medical : MGI Pharma MOGN New patents, anti cancer -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doug Thatcher who wrote (811)	3/20/1998 2:54:00 PM
From: astro	Respond to of 1826

Wow another two hundred thousand plus day, and it's Friday and no news. We should be popping up on radar scopes all over. astro

To: Doug Thatcher who wrote (811)	3/20/1998 3:22:00 PM
From: David Cathcart	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1826

Doug, <<MGI should take on partners for marketing, especially in Europe>> To my knowledge the issue at hand is distribution for the U.S. only. MGI Pharma does not have a sales force in any other country and partners with other companies to meet that need. Below are excerpts from messages I sent to Peter earlier today regarding this issue: I hope you are wrong about the deficiency in the MGI sales force for two reasons. First, I naturally want the profit from Salagen to maximized. The second reason, and more fundamentally important for the long term investor, is that the management and board members at MGI should know better. Blitzer has been around a long time with a strong track record and the same can be said for Basil Mundy and many board members. There is no excuse for them not knowing the game they are playing in. If they are off in the needed requirement for proper distribution of Salagen for Sjogren's by an order of magnitude [this was a term Peter had used in a message to me], I honestly need to pair down my position in this investment. I like to bet on the jockey rather than the horse, and it would take a lousy jockey to steer the horse that poorly. One point of interest may be the number of products a salesperson can effectively represent at a time. While I do not know how many customers each pharmaceutical rep can effectively call on, I do know that it is difficult for them the try introduce too many products at once. During one presentation, someone asked Blitzer if they were looking to acquire lots of new products. Blitzer pointed out that their pursuit of new products would be limited by the fact that a sales force can only expect to unveil one or two new products per year. That may partially explain the need for Dura Pharmaceutical to have so many salespeople. I assume they are representing a large number of drugs. So, in addition to the number of customers per sales rep, the number of drugs, particularly new drugs, per sales rep seems to be a relevant issue. I am a partner in a sales and marketing company and there are many issues involved in sales and product distribution. Your concern is highly relevant and I will bring it up during the next conference call [assuming I have the opportunity], which should be on or around April 15th. I would like management at MGI to discuss the length of time they will have patent protection for Salagen, and how they plan to maximize market penetration in that window. David