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

To: AlienTech who wrote (13621)	8/18/1998 10:20:00 PM
From: VLAD	Respond to of 23519

alien, Nobody here knows what this guy thinks or cares unless they personally know the man. I have flamed the guy mostly out of frustration. Nobody has a crystal ball and like the Zebra said the board was screaming for a buy back. Maybe the board does not blame Wilson because it was they who killed the cash. Maybe it was the board who held out for more money when they were negotiating a buy out in '97. This guy is now damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Everybody knows that if Vivus could afford to eat less over the next 2 or 3 quarters that they would eventually do OK as the Viagra failures eventually try MUSE or injectables. These things take a lot of time and it seems like the cash crunch doesn't give us a lot of time. Even with all the cuts it still costs a lot to run a 90,000 sf manufacturing facility. Materials, employees, equipment, maintenance, taxes, insurance, the list goes on and it is not cheap. The gravy was in the domestic sales. With the domestic sales off 70% and low profit margins on the international product, the company will be lucky to squeek a small profit in Q3. It is possible that with this cash crunch, Vivus may be just scraping by to pay for the Alibra trials not to mention other things in R&D. The problem now with a sale is that management and most shareholders would not be happy with a buy out unless the price was more realistically aligned with the '96-'97 trading range. Any buyer would try to get a vulnerable company to sell for less. I guess an investment banker would make sure that a fair market price is reached. Anybody who buys Vivus gets a turn key operation. Vivus did all the work and spent a lot of money on R&D for MUSE. 5 million was paid just to protect the patent. There is over 40 million sunk into the factory and equipment. Alibra is also something the buyer would get rights to along with the patent on the delivery system. In 5 years whoever owned the company would have rights to the entire world which other companies have already introduced and marketed the product. If Wilson can negotiate a sale that is resonable then he should do it. If he can negotiate a partnership that is reasonable he should do that instead unless he can get over 20 bucks for a sale. With patience and a strong partner, Vivus can be a 25 dollar stock in a year. I'll stop my babbling now.