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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Baker who wrote (2446)	5/12/1998 11:23:00 PM
From: MARIO PASQUA	Respond to of 9523

I still say..PFE $160.00 in the near future. I don't know if this was posted.. VIAGRA ALTERS ROLE OF FAMILY DOCTOR AP-NY-05-12-98 1703EDT By JOHN HENDREN .c The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - The unprecedented popularity of the impotence pill Viagra has given family doctors a greater role in treating impotency. Half the prescriptions written for the Pfizer Inc. potency pill in the week ended May 1 were penned by primary care doctors and only a third by urologists, according to IMS Health, a private industry researcher based in Plymouth Meeting, Pa. The figures were reversed during Viagra's first two weeks on the market. The $10-a-pill drug, which has rapidly come to dominate the impotence market, now accounts for 98 percent of prescriptions for drugs treating erectile dysfunction. The number of patients taking impotence drugs has increased dramatically, from 21,189 in the week ending March 27 to 286,832 in the week ended May 1, according to IMS figures. Doctors say there simply aren't enough urologists to keep up with the demand. The drug will bring in $1 billion in sales at the current level, according to Hemant K. Shah, an independent industry analyst in Warren, N.J. That exceeds even the most optimistic estimates of Viagra's popularity before it hit the market. The drug's rapid rise apparently caught even Pfizer off guard. Pfizer's sales force had not even started marketing the drug with promotional brochures during that period. An estimated 30 million men in the United States and 100 million worldwide suffer from erectile dysfunction, but the drug's potential market could be wider because it is now being tested for possible use in women with sexual performance problems. So far, the drug has been introduced only in the United States. Assuming 30 percent of impotent men in the United States and 20 percent of those in Europe and Japan buy the drug twice a week, the potential market for Viagra is $10.5 billion, larger than any previous drug, Shah said. If women use it too, the market could expand to as much as $20 billion, he said. Insurers are scrambling to deal with Viagra's surging popularity. Many are still deciding whether to cover Viagra, but 47 percent of patients are already being reimbursed, although many make copayments, according to IMS. The remaining 53 percent are paying cash. Insurers cover up to 73 percent of older impotence drugs. AP-NY-05-12-98 1703EDT