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Biotech / Medical : Sepracor-Looks very promising -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1079)	8/13/1998 3:44:00 PM
From: Bob Swift	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10280

According to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Merck & Co. Inc. is entering into late-stage human testing of antidepressant drugs that block a brain chemical known as Substance P, word of which has started a race among other big pharmaceuticals makers researching the chemical,such as Pfizer Inc., Novartis AG , and Eli Lilly & Co. To quote " Merck is so enthusiastic about the experimental medication it is planning further tests of it for anxiety disorders, manic depression and schizophrenia, the paper said. An estimated 20 percent of the nation's 17 million people suffering from depression aren't helped by such mainstay treatments as Prozac and Zoloft. The race to test substance-P drugs could lead to an entirely new category of antidepressants that could bring relief to these patients. Substance P research is also important to the millions more patients who suffer side effects such as reduced sexual desire, heightened anxiety and insomnia from existing depression drugs and eventually quit taking them. Scientists caution that large-scale tests to confirm the promise of Substance-P drugs could take at least two years. But if Merck's new drug works as hoped, it could shake-up the more than $7 billion market for antidepressants by introducing a whole new type of drug. Merck told the newspaper it will not comment on the research findings until they are published. A major scientific journal is expected to publish them in the next few weeks." How is this going to affect SEPR's Prozac ICE market ? What is the best and worst scenario ? Should SEPR be priced at 45 now.