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

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (4867)	8/12/1998 8:23:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

ICOS says joint venture likely on impotence drug Wednesday August 12, 7:41 am Eastern Time By Martin Wolk SEATTLE, Aug 11 (Reuters) - ICOS Corp (ICOS - news) is innegotiations with major pharmaceutical companies that are likely to result in a joint venture to market its experimental male impotence drug IC351, Chairman George Rathmann said Tuesday. ''The likelihood is very low we'll go without a partner,'' he said at an investors conference. IC351 is only one of several drugs the biotechnology company has in Phase II clinical trials but has captured the lion's share of attention from potential partners because of the runaway success of the very similar Viagra. The Pfizer (PFE - news) Inc drug for male erectile dysfunction was launched in April this year and is expected to generate a record $1 billion in sales in its first year. Icos plans to release the first data from overseas clinical studies of IC351 by the end of next month, while U.S. efficacy studies are just getting under way. Icos also expects to release by the end of next month early results of Phase 2 clinical studies of its Hu23F2G antibody for multiple sclerosis and stroke, Rathmann said at the Medical Investments Northwest conference. Even if the clinical studies prove successful, it probably would take about three years before any of the products can get to market, Rathmann said. Nevertheless Icos stock has surged 175 percent in the past year based on the clinical progress of its drug candidates, strong alliances and its portfolio of intellectual property, Rathmann said. Rathmann said Icos also has benefited from its strong, active board of directors including Microsoft (MSFT - news) Corp Chairman Bill Gates, who owns a 13 percent stake. Icos chief accounting officer Howard Mendelsohn told Reuters the company had hoped to complete a joint venture deal on IC351 by mid-June of this year but continued negotiations because of the strong interest. Although the company lost $18 million in the first half of 1998 and has only enough cash for a few more months of operations, executives feel little pressure to act quickly. "We have numerous options ahead of us," Mendelsohn said. The company expects to get a cash infusion beginning in October when warrants for 7.6 million common shares become exercisable at an average price of $9.75, compared with Tuesday's Nasdaq close of $22.94. ''We believe as soon as they are available a significant number of them will be exercised,'' Mendelsohn said. Rathmann declined to identify which companies Icos is talking to other than to say they are among the world's ''top 20'' and do not include Glaxo Wellcome Plc (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: GLXO.L), which helped develop IC351 and will get a percentage ''in the mid-single digits'' of any eventual sales. A five-year joint development agreement between the two countries lapsed in 1996 when Glaxo saw a relatively small market for the drug. Laboratory studies have shown the Icos drug will be similar in effect to Viagra but without a side effect that produces blue-tinged vision in some users. Regarding the clinical studies, Rathmann said, ''We know enough to know that something's happening, and it's along the right lines.'' Despite the long head start for Viagra, Rathmann said the drug companies courting Icos are convinced the market is big enough for two players and that ''there are very interesting ways to market the product against an entrenched competitor.'' biz.yahoo.com

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (4867)	8/12/1998 10:08:00 AM
From: zurdo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9523

Anthony, this is the same information you already posted in Post #4864...It seems that the WSJ is always ready to publish any negative health incidents (eye, heart, poopy, etc. etc.) on any person who has ever taken Viagra, whether there is any causal link or not...The WSJ reporters must make a beeline for patients' medication history to see if they have ever taken Viagra, so they can impute the health problem to the use of Viagra, whether it was used months ago or yesterday, and whether it was used one time or one hundred times... .