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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 (5015)	8/19/1998 5:49:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

The London Times: Pfizer's UK labs find way from TCP to Viagra August 17 1998 Pfizer, the American company behind Viagra, came to Britain in 1951, initially to make the antibiotic penicillin. The company was attracted to the UK by the strength of British science. Penicillin, like Viagra, was a British discovery, and the universities were able to provide the PhDs Pfizer needed to staff its laboratories. It now employs 3,500 people at Sandwich in Kent, nearly half of them in research and development. In Glaxo Wellcome, SmithKline Beecham and Zeneca, Britain has three of the 20 largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Novartis of Switzerland has 3,000 UK employees and had sales last year of œ650 million. The industry showed a trade surplus of œ2,250 million in 1996 - second only to North Sea oil. Pfizer claims to be the biggest foreign investor in the UK after Ford Motor Company, having invested œ480 million since 1990. It plans to invest œ350 million over the next three years. This commitment includes œ109 million on a new research facility at Sandwich that will employ 650 scientists and support staff, and œ50 million on a new corporate headquarters in Reigate that will create 700 jobs. Before Viagra, Pfizer was probably best known, if at all, for TCP, the liquid antiseptic. However, in sales terms TCP is trivial beside the group's real powerhouse in prescription pharmaceuticals. The Sandwich scientists developed three of the group's most successful products. Norvasc (or Istin as it is known in the UK) and Cardura, both for high blood pressure, had sales worth œ1.75 billion last year, while Diflucan for fungal diseases had sales of œ540 million. These three drugs represent 40 per cent of Pfizer's total pharmaceutical sales. In an attempt to bolster its voice in the corridors of power, Pfizer has contracted accountants from KPMG to assess its contribution to the UK economy. The royalties on Norvasc, Cardura and Diflucan enabled the firm to make a œ348-million-contribution to the balance of payments last year from œ475 million of exports. Pfizer Limited paid œ82.5 million of tax on profits of œ232.9 million last year. Using normal pharmaceutical industry multiples, a stand alone Pfizer UK would itself be large enough to join the FTSE 100. list of leading companies. Although Pfizer and Britain appear to have been good for one another, Simon Campbell, head of European R&D, has been critical of the Government's under-investment in science over the past 20 years. Before the recent œ1 billion award to university science - largely funded by the Wellcome Foundation, the medical charity - Dr Campbell complained that government science spending had fallen by 28 per cent in the past decade. Ken Moran, the Australian chairman of Pfizer in the UK, says the quality of British doctoral research no longer matches the output from other parts of Europe. He says that, but for the scale of Pfizer's existing presence in the UK, the company may have chosen to site its new R&D facilities elsewhere. PAUL DURMAN sunday-times.co.uk:80/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?2383892

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (5015)	8/19/1998 6:00:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

BBC: Viagra sex scene 'should never have been filmed' Tuesday, August 18, 1998 Published at 13:02 GMT 14:02 UK A couple are asked if Viagra improved their sexual experience TV clean-up campaigner Mary Whitehouse has called on the BBC to drop footage of a couple filmed having sex as part of a documentary on the effects of the impotence drug Viagra. She said: "I really think someone has gone out of their mind." The footage, which was recorded for BBC Two's Modern Times series, shows self-styled sex therapist Tuppy Owens, 53, making love with her partner hours after he had taken the anti-impotence pill. They are then asked whether the "wonder pill" has boosted the experience. Mrs Whitehouse has called on BBC governors to stop the footage being screened. "It is incredible stuff really," said Mrs Whitehouse. "They should never have filmed it in the first place. "They are using our money and the vast majority of people would resent their licence fee being paid for something like this." 'A legitimate subject' A BBC spokeswoman said the programme makers had not yet decided whether to include the footage in the documentary to be shown in November. She said: "It is clear that the introduction of Viagra into the UK market will be one of the biggest stories of the year and is a legitimate subject for programme makers." She added that Ms Owens, the author of a number of erotic books and leader of the Sexual Freedom Coalition, suggested the sex scene herself. The footage was shot using a fixed camera while the crew sat in another room, and Miss Owens kept her 'nightwear' on throughout. Sex therapy group Miss Owens has hit the headlines for books such as Take Me I'm Yours and The Sex Maniacs' Diary. She founded the Outsiders' Club, a sex therapy group for disabled people, and employed former brothel-keeper Cynthia Payne to provide members with sexy chats. A spokesman for Culture and Media Secretary Chris Smith said programme content was a matter for BBC management and, ultimately, the corporation's governors. But he added: "The Secretary of State would expect the management and, if necessary, the governors to consider carefully this sort of programme if it transpires there is a decision to broadcast these scenes." Conservative health spokesman Philip Hammond condemned the filming as an "obscene use" of licence payers' money. Mr Hammond said: "When I first heard of this enterprise I thought it was a joke. This is quiet an unbelievable thing to do with licence-payers' money." 'Stretched beyond limits' "To use the continued hype over Viagra as an excuse to show live sex on prime-time television is to stretch the interpretation of public service broadcasting beyond its limits." Conservative party officials were investigating whether the corporation had broken the law by filming use of Viagra as it has not yet been licensed in Britain, he said. Miss Owens was not prepared to discuss the programme. But speaking from her London home, she said: "Obviously I think that most people should find out what is true about sex rather than the nonsense printed in the papers and put on television about sex." news.bbc.co.uk

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (5015)	8/19/1998 3:40:00 PM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9523

Anthony, Thanks for keeping the thread updated with all the news fit to print about Pfizer products. I like the London Times long term forecast of $5B world wide for Viagra, though I think their figure of $1.5B in 1999 is too low. I thought Pfizer sold over $400M of Viagra in 2Q98 in the US alone and we are about to see the market expanded to Asia, Europe, etc. Wouldn't that make a projection for 1999 much higher than $1.5B, or am I missing some fine point? The 5 day chart on pfe looks promising (http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=PFE&d=5d). Do you think we're seeing the start of an upward trend, or are we just bouncing around with the market? Sales from Pfizer's expanding geographical markets for Viagra will start filtering to the p&l at the end of this quarter, and the (efficient) market is supposed to be anticipating that type of event. Frank btw, it looks like your large cap strategy is working. Congratulations on csco and intc.