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

To: VLAD who wrote (11180)	7/10/1998 7:38:00 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

IT'S THE WEEKEND!!!! An excellent time to discuss partenrships with corporate giants. I liked the stock action today . . . . down but not out. CR

To: VLAD who wrote (11180)	7/10/1998 8:45:00 PM
From: VLAD	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23519

Questions for anybody??? How long has Wilson been CEO of Vivus? What was his prior management experience? What is his educational background? Can the Vivus board simply fire him by a quick vote or how would his removal occur? What is his salary? IMO the one BIG mistake Wilson made was underestimating the response to Viagra. Had he been prepared, a domestic partner would have been established BEFORE Viagra's release. Other big errors this company made was to buy back shares before Viagra was released. I feel that we could easily be sitting on a 10 dollar stock now if Vivus kept its money in its pocket and had waited at least 3 to 6 months to buy back shares. Now we have a company that will be cash strapped if Q3 is not a turn around--I think it will be a turn around but Vivus would not have to take a one time charge and be cash strapped had it used it's fat cash base for a rainy day--instead a lot of money was wasted on ineffective advertising, extra sales reps and a share buy back which averaged 150% over present prices. IMO when you are a small company such as vivus and you know that you will have to compete with a large pharma such as Pfizer, then you should align yourself with another large pharma that can take care of marketing your product effectively. Wilson has no excuse for not being prepared to deal with competition. In the cc he speaks of how things are different now that ED can be treated by PCPs via Viagra. A CEO who couldn't figure this out 6 months ago IMO has no clue--who couldn't figure that one out BEFORE Viagra came to market. If Wilson wants to save face he now must cut a deal ASAP and not months from now. It will be interesting to see how long it will take him to iron out a domestic partnership and what the margins will then be for Vivus. I think that in this deal he should include a deal where the partner will pay Vivus for continued R&D and that partner could market any future products that the R&D manages to develop--this would eliminate another major quarterly expense that I am sure a large pharma would be willing to pay for rights to sell future products.