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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bhag Karamchandani who wrote (4400)	6/8/1998 12:19:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Respond to of 6136

Bhag: Consider the strong reasons for marketing DMP-266 and Viracept using the same sales force. IMO, the rationale far outweighs, even for Merck, any reason for DuPont to continue to support crix sales. Merck should bite the bullet in the U.S., as Roche did in Europe. They should get on with life. DuPont could immediately become tracked to become the new Glaxo. I'm presuming that DuPont is obligated, as a part of the buyout, to co-promote crix. If this is not the case, then the share price is going to soar, soon. So, to answer your question...... Johnson is attempting to integrate SBD with combichem and integrate a broad-based discovery program into a "one product" company. They've got all the pieces to keep the story on track, including earnings, other than deep pockets. So, the component of the short sales that is naked?...... they're going to suffer. I am *not* saying that DuPont will necessarily be the successful suitor, or that the deal will be an outright "buy". I'm just saying that the breakup of DuPont-Merck should be a catalyst. As I've indicated, any suitor needs to deal with the JT complexity. 3340..... a new approach to cancer, but a vision shared with others. We need to keep alert for anecdotal evidence of efficacy, and we need to be aware of the excitement generated by Chiroscience. Thymitaq.... I've not looked recently, nor have I talked with IR at AGPH. The published phase I studies show only one partial response. There are lots of ongoing studies with the inhibition of TS, a new crystal structure for human TS is available, competitors interested in the field include Glaxo, etc. I'm interested that AGPH has second generation inhibitors and that they have focused on the p53 connection (which is holding, from what I saw of AACR abstracts). Perhaps Thymitaq was a "bad execution" foray that can't be licensed, but a productive project given time on a valuable learning curve? Rick