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

To: Perry who wrote (2574)	5/18/1998 4:45:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

Scripts for week ending May 8: biz.yahoo.com NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) - Shares of Pfizer Inc. (PFE - news) and Warner-Lambert Co. (WLA - news) each rose Monday on positive news about a key prescription drug, bucking a downturn in the broad stock market, analysts said. Pfizer jumped 4-7/8 to 109-1/2 in afternoon trade. ABN-AMRO analyst Mario Corso said Pfizer was helped by data from audit service IMS America showing favorable prescription trends for the company's new impotence pill, Viagra. He said IMS data showed 278,715 new prescriptions were written for Viagra in the week ending May 8, three percent higher than the 269,842 new prescriptions in the prior week. Corso added the IMS data showed about 24,000 Viagra prescriptions were refilled during the week of May 8, a 50 percent increase from the approximately 16,000 refills in the prior week. ''The refill numbers are positive,'' Corso said, adding he expected sales of the impotence pill, which was launched in early April, to eventually settle into a range of 200,000 to 250,000 new prescriptions per week. Corso said current prescription trends for Viagra, if sustained, would predict sales of over $1 billion in 1998. He added he expected revenues to reach $4 billion by 2001. Corso said Warner-Lambert jumped on implied good news for Rezulin, its treatment for Type II diabetes that was launched in early 1997. The drug is also known by its chemical name troglitazone. Specifically, he said Warner-Lambert was helped by an announcement Monday from London-based drugmaker Glaxo Wellcome Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: GLXO.L), which has United Kingdom marketing rights from the drug's developer Sankyo Co Ltd (4501.T). Glaxo had sold troglitazone in the United Kingdom under the brand name Romoxin until suspending sales in December on concerns about possible liver problems among patients. Glaxo's sudden withdrawal of the drug in the United Kingdom had cast a dark shadow over the compound, a factor that temporarily helped depress Warner-Lambert shares because of its reliance on troglitazone for continued strong company growth. Glaxo eased concerns Monday, Corso said, by annoucing it planned to discuss with Britain's Medicines Control Agency possible reintroduction of troglitazone. In addition, Glaxo said it hoped to recommence its earlier efforts to win marketing clearance for the drug in other European markets. ''Glaxo's statement kind of lifted the cloud over troglitazone,'' Corso said. He added Pfizer and Warner-Lambert had the best 1998 earnings growth prospects among major U.S. drugmakers, with Pfizer's per share diluted earnings likely to grow over 20 percent and Warner-Lambert's likely to swell 30 percent -- helped respectively by Viagra and Rezulin sales.