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Biotech / Medical : Eli Lilly -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bull-like who wrote (335)	9/16/1998 9:19:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 642

Novo Nordisk Seeks FDA Approval for Fast-Acting Diabetes Drug Bloomberg News September 16, 1998, 5:17 a.m. ET Novo Nordisk Seeks FDA Approval for Fast-Acting Diabetes Drug Copenhagen, Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Novo Nordisk A/S, the world's largest maker of diabetes treatments, said it applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval to sell a new, fast-acting insulin drug for treatment of diabetes. The new drug, NovoRapid, will compete with a similar product, Humalog, made by Eli Lilly & Co. of the U.S. In August, Novo applied to the European Medicines Evaluation Agency for European marketing approval for the drug. NovoRapid will mark the company's entry into the market for a newer, quicker-acting kind of analog insulin drugs, of which Humalog was the first example. It is intended for use immediately after meals, and is better at controlling patients' blood-sugar levels, Novo said. ''We believe Humalog is priced at a 30 percent premium to traditional insulin types,'' Palle Holm Olesen, an analyst at Nykredit Bank A/S, said when Novo applied for European marketing approval. Olesen has a ''buy'' recommendation on Novo shares. Novo products account for just over 50 percent of the world's $2.2 billion insulin market, ahead of Lilly with roughly 45 percent. The U.S. drugmaker introduced Humalog in 1996. It generated sales of $65 million in 1997 and had a market share of 7 percent by volume, according to Olesen. ''We believe this can help us win market share from Eli Lilly, and although it'll partly cannibalize sales of our current line of insulins, it's a more advanced product with a higher profit margin,'' Lars Rebien Soerensen, head of Novo's healthcare division, said in an interview in August. Novo plans to market NovoRapid throughout Europe and in the U.S. in mid-1999. Diabetes products accounted for 71 percent of Novo's total heath-care sales of 12.528 billion kroner in 1997. In addition to insulins, the company sells other products for diabetes patients, such as the NovoPen reusable injection system and LifeScan blood-sugar measurement equipment. Novo shares where unchanged at 950 kroner. --David Bentow in the Copenhagen bureau (45) 33 32 21 21/ab

To: Bull-like who wrote (335)	9/16/1998 5:59:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 642

Doctors See New Osteoporosis Drugs as Benefit to Treatment Bloomberg News September 16, 1998, 1:16 p.m. ET Doctors See New Osteoporosis Drugs as Benefit to Treatment Berlin, Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Doctors returned home from Europe's biggest gathering of osteoporosis experts this week with new evidence that drugs from Eli Lilly & Co., Merck & Co. and others can help patients, while even newer treatments are moving through development. The U.S. drugmakers presented new data at the European Congress of Osteoporosis in Berlin that showed their drugs can cut the risk of dangerous bone fractures by about half, sending their stock prices higher. Doctors said there is a strong need for new drugs to treat the bone-thinning disease that can cause debilitating fractures and deformities in an estimated 200 million women worldwide. While they hailed progress made in finding new drugs, in the worldwide $2.8 billion market, some say even better drugs with fewer side-effects are needed to help post-menopausal women avoid landing in hospital. ''These drugs are important, but we want more efficacious drugs and safer ones,'' said Ego Seeman, a doctor with the Austin & Repatriation Medical Center in Heidelberg, Australia, who presented a study on Merck's Fosamax, the best-selling drug in one class of osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates. ''We want drugs that have an effectiveness of 80 percent or 90 percent, not 50 percent,'' said Seeman. Until recently, osteoporosis was widely viewed as part of the natural process of aging. While its origins are still unclear, researchers now say it appears osteoporosis is caused when the natural balance of bone-building cells and bone- destroying cells is thrown off, and it's not an inevitable process. New Drugs New drugs like bisphosphonates made by Merck, the world's biggest drugmaker, Procter & Gamble Co. and Hoechst AG appear to ''turn off'' the bone-destroying cells, slowing the depletion process. So far, no drug has been proven to activate the bone- building cells, however. Even with the new drugs, there is still much debate about when to treat and which drugs to use, or which drugs can be used in combination. Doctors agreed that detection of osteoporosis had made giant strides, however, and urged health authorities to adopt regular screening for osteoporosis. ''There are far too many patients that are not diagnosed and far too many that are diagnosed but not treated,'' said Pierre D. Delmas, president of the International Osteoporosis Foundation, one sponsor of the Berlin conference. Even though the cost of treating hip fractures alone is estimated to be $16 billion a year in Europe, Delmas said national health agencies have largely failed to adopt widespread screening for osteoporosis. ''The cost of diagnosis is extremely low compared to the cost of treatment,'' said Delmas. At dozens of symposia at the European Congress of Osteoporosis, questions were raised about the cost of a new crop of medicines drug companies are bringing to market and whether insurance companies, governments and other so-called payers will underwrite what will probably be long-term therapy to treat the bone-thinning disease. Bone Deterioration New drugs, including Lilly's Evista, Merck's Fosamax and Novartis AG's Miacalcic, all were shown to cut the rate of bone deterioration from osteoporosis with fewer side-effects than older drugs on the market. However, the new drugs can cost twice as much as older generic drugs, raising a new debate over cost versus benefits at a time of ever-tightening purse strings by those who pay for medicines. ''It's a huge issue for Blue Cross,'' said Steven R. Cummings, assistant dean at the University of California, San Francisco, referring to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, one of the biggest health insurers in the U.S. Cummings, who has tested a number of new women's health drugs, said Fosamax and Evista both cost about $600 a year for daily treatment as required. The current standard treatment for osteoporosis -- hormone replacement therapy -- costs about $300 a year. Multiplying that by several million post-menopausal patients translates into a major new cost for health insurers when many are facing unprecedented competitive pressures, said Cummings. Doctors said that while hormone therapy will probably continue to be the main treatment for post-menopausal symptoms, they anticipate rising demand for Evista and Fosamax, as well as a crop of newer drugs that are in late-stage clinical trials. Only recently have insurance companies and health maintenance organizations begun to recognize that new medicines can save heavy costs down the road, they say. ''It's only now that people have started to put together health economics strategies for these treatments,'' said John A. Kanis, a professor of medicine at the University of Nottingham, England, and a board member of the International Osteoporosis Foundation. Most troubling, said Kanis, is that the new drugs ''will have to compete against other long-term therapies,'' such as medicines for the heart, kidney or respiratory systems taken daily by millions of people. The key message for health care providers, he said, is that ''they can save money with early detection and early intervention.'' --Dane Hamilton in the London newsroom (44-171) 330-7727/ph

To: Bull-like who wrote (335)	9/21/1998 3:55:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 642

U.S. Drugmakers' Profits Rise on New Products: Industry Outlook Bloomberg News September 21, 1998, 2:20 p.m. ET U.S. Drugmakers' Profits Rise on New Products: Industry Outlook Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. drugmakers, including Warner- Lambert Co., Pfizer Inc. and Schering-Plough Corp., will report higher third-quarter profits, thanks to an expanding market for pills to treat chronic ailments such as diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. ''The drug group is looking better than just about anyone else in the third quarter,'' said Linda Miller, who manages John Hancock's Global Rx Fund. ''Part of it is the willingness of managed-care companies to pay for medicine.'' Managed-care companies, looking to cut costs, are willing to pay for drugs that may help save them money by keeping people out of the hospital. Merck & Co.'s sales of cholesterol-reducing drugs, a medicine intended to prevent heart attacks, top $4 billion a year. Warner-Lambert and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. each have cholesterol drug with $1 billion in annual sales. Drugmakers also benefited in the quarter from medicines introduced in the past year that cater to the aging population. Pfizer's impotence pill, Viagra, was the most-successful drug introduction ever earlier this year. Merck started sales of a pill to treat male baldness, and Eli Lilly & Co. brought out a drug to prevent thinning of bones, known as osteoporosis, a common condition in older women. These companies also are largely sheltered from the decline in value of currencies in Russia and Asia because they get most of their sales from North America and Europe. Merck, the world's largest drugmaker, gets about 75 percent of its revenue from the U.S. alone. Warner-Lambert, which also makes consumer goods such as Dentyne gum and Schick razors, gets more than half of its sales from the U.S. Warner-Lambert Turnaround Morris Plains, New Jersey-based Warner-Lambert is expected to earn 34 cents a diluted share, the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call, up from 24 cents in the year-ago period, adjusted for a 3-for-1 stock split. Lipitor and the diabetes pill Rezulin, which is licensed from Japan's Sankyo Co., turned Warner-Lambert into an industry leader. Both drugs were introduced in 1997. Lipitor exceeded sales of $1 billion in its first 12 months on the market, while Rezulin had sales of $226 million in the second quarter. Lipitor has grown in part by taking market share from Merck's top-selling product, the cholesterol-reducer Zocor. Lipitor now holds about 34 percent of the U.S. cholesterol- reducer market and Merck, 24 percent, according to IMS Health Inc., which tracks U.S. pharmacy sales. ''It's a real Cinderella story,'' Miller said. New Drugs from Merck Warner-Lambert's threat to Zocor comes amid disappointing early sales of some of Merck's new drugs, analysts said. In July, Merck warned that its 1998 profit would be at the lower end analysts' estimates of $4.27 to $4.42 a share. It guided analysts to a range of $4.28 to $4.39 a share. Since December, Merck has introduced five drugs, including Maxalt for migraines. The biggest hit of the new crop appears to be a once-a-day treatment for asthma, Singulair, said said James Keeney, an analyst at ABN Amro, who has a ''hold'' on Merck.. ''The five new drugs are not generating the sales we expected,'' he said. In the third quarter, meanwhile, Pfizer will have revenue from two new drugs -- the antibiotic Trovan and Viagra. Viagra sales likely will drop from its record-setting pace in the second quarter, when it generated sales of $411 million. Drug wholesalers stocked up on Viagra during the second quarter and U.S. pharmacy sales have slowed, falling to about 165,000 prescriptions filled a week after topping 300,000 in one week in May. Revenue from new drugs, though, will add to that from Pfizer's older drugs, including some of the world's most-widely prescribed medicines, such as the high-blood pressure medicine Norvasc and antidepressant Zoloft. Pfizer is expected to earn 56 cents a diluted share, the average estimate of analysts polled by First Call. A year- earlier, it earned 46 cents a share. Drug Advertising Guidelines Drugmakers also are benefiting from new U.S. guidelines on advertising. In the past, drugmakers used television very little because of the time that would have been required to give details on side effects. Now, drugmakers run ads on television and refer viewers to magazines and Web sites for details. Advertising campaigns like Schering-Plough's TV ads for Claritin, the world's biggest allergy drug, boosted sales for its top seller. That's expected to push Schering-Plough's third- quarter profit to 57 cents a diluted share from 48 cents a year earlier. Eli Lilly & Co. also has used more direct-to-consumer ads to boost sales of its top seller, Prozac, the world's biggest antidepressant drug. Sales of the 11-year-old drug rose 11 percent to $1.28 billion in the first half of 1998. Indianapolis-based Lilly is expected to earn 49 cents a share, up from 40 cents, First Call Corp. said. Company 3rd-Qtr Year-Ago Number of Estimate EPS Analysts Abbott Laboratories $0.34 $0.30 16 American Home Products 0.46 0.33 24 Bristol-Myers Squibb 0.95 0.84 28 Johnson & Johnson 0.70 0.63 22 Eli Lilly 0.49 0.40 27 Merck 1.12 0.97 33 Pfizer 0.56 0.46 31 Pharmacia 0.41 0.35 18 Schering-Plough 0.57 0.48 26 Warner-Lambert 0.34 0.24 29 Estimates and year-ago figures provided by First Call Corp. --Kerry Dooley in the Princeton newsroom (609) 279-4016