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

To: Colby who wrote (9054)	6/3/1998 8:04:00 PM
From: VLAD	Respond to of 23519

Colby, One can never say for sure what the market manipulators do. Some times they work together so you really don't know who is buying or selling for whom. Spread money can only be made if the market maker is on both sides of the spread. FWIW, I think that the only way this stocks manipulation will end is if several FUDs buy up a lot of shares with a plan to hold for a long term and not trade. I think most of this stocks movement is based on hedged positions so the "players" don't really care where vivus goes as long as they can make the right trades. The thing that I find the most strange is that Vivus is not a speculative biotech in that MUSE has been around for 1 1/2 years. Weekly script numbers have been viewed by all so there have been no uncertainties and secrets as to where things are going. IMO, the only thing that matters now from a fundamental viewpoint is how many more weeks it will take to see a significant rise in MUSE scripts. The refills are still over 3,000 which to me is still promising. If you look at last years scripts, you can see that it took 5 months to reach this refill level after the initial MUSE launch. If Viagra is bringing in as many new patients as the press is stating then I would imagine that we can easily double our refill rate in the same time span. Refill rates loomed in the 4,000 to 5,000 rate from July of last year and only declined since Viagras release. This tells me that using an average of 4,500 refills, MUSE has only lost 1/3 of its "regular" customers thus far. This IMO says that there is still a good loyal following. Of the 1/3 lost we still don't know how many are temporary vs permanent. The new patients failing on Viagra and trying MUSE does not have to be that great in order to only get back up to the prior levels. What we really need to see is a nice steady increase in new scripts. If this is seen over the next month or two then this irrational fear that Viagra will kill Vivus's market will be totally disproven. As Vivus longs we are siting on dead money until we can see the new script numbers materialize. Next week will not be good for scripts because of Memorial Day but I think June will be the start of finding out if Viagra will eventually bring in more patients than it will take away. I am very long and will now need to be patient for at least one or two months. IMO after that we will all know whether or not we are holding a true dog or a $20.00+ stock.