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

To: zurdo who wrote (4870)	8/12/1998 10:22:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

zurdo, I fully agree with you. If it wasn't for the WSJ article (and the fact that the article was subsequently re-reported by other wire services) PFE would have ben stronger this morning. All these negative news are old news. One starts to be desensitized to them.

To: zurdo who wrote (4870)	8/12/1998 10:39:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9523

Health-Care Stocks Will Continue to Outperform Market, Sutro Says in New Publication Wednesday August 12, 9:59 am Eastern Time Company Press Release LOS ANGELES--(BW HealthWire)--August 12, 1998--Health-care stocks ''will continue to outperform the market in future because of their superior growth prospects,'' in the opinion of analysts specializing in the health-care industry at Sutro & Co. Sutro & Co., founded in 1858, is the oldest securities firm in the Western United States. Its health-care analysts are based in the firm's West Los Angeles office and in New York. The Sutro analysts said they expect that demand for health-care products and services will ''continue growing more rapidly than the economy because of worldwide population aging, continued major innovations in medical technologies and rapidly emerging markets for Western medicines in the Pacific Rim (particularly China) and the former Soviet Union states in Eastern Europe and Asia.'' The Sutro analysts made their observations and predictions in the 92-page first issue of a new publication called Vital Points. To be issued quarterly, Vital Points is written by four Sutro analysts: Eugene Melnitchenko, associate research director and a member of the Wall Street Journal's 1998 All-Star Analysts team; D. Larry Smith, vice president; Bonnie Feldman; and Edward R. Vanacore. In the Sutro analysts' view, ''Health care is arguably the least efficient major industry in the U.S.'' But it is now ''in the early stages of a change that should prove to be as dramatic as those which have transformed most other major American industries into high-quality, low-cost global competitors,'' the report adds. ''Health care is now evolving into a new way of doing business,'' the Sutro analysts assert in Vital Points. ''We believe that the end game will be one in which providers accept pre-set prices for services before they are rendered and are judged on the outcome. ''Health care will evolve into a new industrial-style organization in which there is a compulsion to push production to the lowest possible cost, replacing wherever possible labor with technology and increasing the division and specialization of labor.'' This trend, the Sutro analysts conclude, ''will lead to the creation of many publicly owned companies.'' In the premiere issue of Vital Points, Sutro also introduces indices for measuring the performance of health-care stocks in five sectors of the industry: biotechnology, dental, medical devices, pharmaceutical and medical services. The publication also includes comments on each of these five segments: Biotechnology. Despite some of the clinical trial failures in recent years, ''we believe investors should buy biotechnology stocks selectively...'' Dental. Although dental stocks recently have underperformed, ''we believe the dental industry's prospects are improving...'' Medical devices. ''The long-term outlook for selected medical device companies continues to be excellent.'' Pharmaceutical. Stocks in this segment of the market ''are no longer undervalued and should be bought only during their market weaknesses.'' Medical services. This group has underperformed, probably because ''it will be most affected by the Medicare cutbacks'' and because of the ''controversy and bad publicity generated by the government's current investigation'' for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. But the Sutro analysts ''believe the (medical services) stocks should perform better in the future because of the industry's favorable demographic trends and the possibility to grow through consolidation.'' The final section of Vital Points consists of profiles of 17 publicly owned health-care companies: Assisted Living Concepts Inc. [AMEX:ALF - news], Ballard Medical Products [NYSE:BMP - news], Cholestech Corp. [Nasdaq:CTEC - news], CORE Inc., Diagnostic Health Services Inc. [Nasdaq:DHSM - news], ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. [NYSE:ICN - news], Interpore Cross International, KV Pharmaceutical Co., Merck Inc., Pfizer Inc. [NYSE:PFE - news], PhyCor Inc., Quidel Corp. [Nasdaq:QDEL - news], RehabCare Group Inc., SeraCare Inc., Stericycle Inc.[Nasdaq:SRCL - news], Warner-Lambert and Zila Inc [Nasdaq:ZILA - news]. NOTE TO EDITORS: To obtain a copy of the Vital Points report, call Suzanne Conrad or Rosa Mendoza at 800/421-0658. biz.yahoo.com