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Biotech / Medical : VVUS: VIVUS INC. (NASDAQ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E'Lane who wrote (8893)	6/2/1998 1:49:00 PM
From: KM	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 23519

Ya'll Seen This? This stock is starting to remind me of UFEM (check out that sad story - now delisted) Top Stories: Led Astray by Vivus' Muse By Jesse Eisinger Senior Writer 6/2/98 10:12 AM ET SAN DIEGO -- Impotence bandwagon-jumpers and also-rans have their day today at the American Urological Association meeting here. The candidate for induction into the Also-Ran Hall of Fame is Vivus' (VVUS:Nasdaq) Muse therapy, which is the subject of a huge backlash among urologists. Sales of the impotence device -- a little plastic suppository containing an impotence drug that is inserted into the urethra -- have nosedived since Viagra was launched earlier this year. Now prescriptions are running at about half their pace before the blockbuster Pfizer (PFE:NYSE) drug was introduced. The device is the subject of not one, but two, abstracts that use the phrase "disappointing results" in their title. It's the kind of thing you don't highlight if you're the company's flacks. Aggressively titled abstracts are rare in a world where heated debates are conducted in civil tones. The reason for the backlash is that in clinical trials, Muse had been reported to have a 40% to 50% efficacy rate. That clearly didn't translate in the real world, prompting patient disappointment, doctor anger and a stock price that wilted like a Muse nonresponder. Vivus, which once flew so high that it hit a high of 41 7/8 in October, has made a game attempt to court docs and the media here, hosting a dinner, putting executives in front of embarrassed reporters, and releasing a couple of press statements promoting Vivus' safety. Muse, unlike Viagra, can be taken safely along with the heart drugs called nitrates. However, in touting the safety, the company clearly underestimated how little worry or interest doctors here had in the news that Viagra had been implicated in six deaths. (It's now seven, according to Monday's Wall Street Journal.) The company also underestimated how bitter patients and doctors are about the false promise of Muse. It's safe, perhaps, but Muse isn't so effective. In the first "disappointing" study, to be presented today, doctors followed 134 patients at the Bronx Veteran's Administration Hospital and tracked 107 at three months for follow-up data. Of those 107 patients, only seven were rated good or very good. And while 72% had partial erections, 20% couldn't get it up at all. At the three-month follow-up 24% were satisfied and only 8% filled their prescriptions. In the second "disappointing" study, doctors from a urology practice reported on a self-funded study that showed only 27% of patients achieved rigidity sufficient for intercourse despite getting the highest dose. The doctors accrued data on 115 men. In his report, concisely titled "Kicking a Company When It's Down Because I Only Cut My Rating on It in Mid-December After Riding the Stock Pretty Much All the Way Down," PaineWebber analyst Charles Olsziewski after the Vivus dinner cut his sales and earnings estimates for the company. The stock tumbled 1/2, or 5.4%, to close at 8 3/4 Monday on heavy volume. Merrill Lynch, in a research report on Viagra, predicted that the number of patients on Muse would fall from 228,613 in 1997, or 47% of the market, to 51,580, or 1% of the market in 2003. Because of this, the motive-filled malignity of the short-sellers continues for Vivus. The company still has a market capitalization of $278 million on a rapidly eroding product. And more pills could be coming to the market, like Zonagen's (ZONA:Nasdaq) Vasomax, and TAP Pharmaceutical's apomorphine. (TAP is a joint venture between Abbott (ABT:NYSE) and Japanese drug company Takeda.) At a session on Sunday, Dr. Ira Sharlip of the University of California at San Francisco highlighted 10 companies that were working on anti-impotence creams, pills, gels -- most of which are far less invasive than Muse. For poor Vivus, the feeling must be akin to a buggy-whip maker circa 1915. See Also TOP STORIES ARCHIVE