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Biotech / Medical : Monsanto Co. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (498)	11/11/1998 10:19:00 AM
From: jopawa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2539

Anthony, I got this from thestreet.com, a great site if you are interested. Top Stories: News Analysis The Superaspirin Super Bowl By Jesse Eisinger Senior Writer 11/11/98 9:47 AM ET SAN DIEGO -- Merck's (MRK:NYSE) booth here at the American College of Rheumatology conference has fake wood-paneled Doric columns with fake marble bases. The gold-plated espresso machine boasts a constant line, with the Americans getting cappuccino and the foreign doctors getting espresso. Art hangs on the prefab walls, prompting doctors to ask where is the Van Gogh. The effect is actually magisterial, or as magisterial as you can get in a conference center in sunny San Diego. The other companies don't color their plastic to make it look like something more weighty and more substantial, but, then again, other companies are not Merck. All part of the image. Tuesday afternoon, doctors and Wall Street analysts and investors flitted back and forth from the poster sessions full of data on the new COX-2 superaspirins to the Merck booth for coffee. Merck used its booth (and, to a lesser degree, its posters) to convince docs and Wall Street that its superaspirin Vioxx is the next monster drug. Since general practitioners and not rheumatologists will likely prescribe these drugs most often, Merck's show was largely for the Street. Meanwhile, Monsanto's (MTC:NYSE) Searle unit's booth sat away from the action, though the company's own Celebrex superaspirin had a poster. Chalk one up for Merck in the upcoming marketing battle for the hearts and minds of pain-managing doctors. The posters were mobbed here at the conference, first by a wave of Wall Street types, furiously scribbling down what were actually somewhat uninformative study summaries. Then, the doctors came and stood, four and five people deep, looking at the studies. The consensus was that the COX-2 class will be huge, displacing the mostly generic class of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen and naproxen. The second-generation compounds, in early clinical trials now, could be even bigger. It's pretty difficult to find an investor or analyst who doesn't think the COX-2s will be a giant category. However, neither Merck's Vioxx nor Celebrex, the Monsanto drug that will be marketed by Pfizer (PFE:NYSE), looks dominant so far. Celebrex is a twice-a-day drug and Vioxx is a once-a-day, but analysts downplayed that. At high doses, Vioxx has been rumored to have a problem with water retention, but, according to one of its posters, the drug had a similar number of cases of "mild fluid retention" to ibuprofen. The COX-2s aren't more effective in treating pain, the data presented here showed, just equally good as older drugs. But the drugs are supposed to be safer and cause fewer ulcers and gastrointestinal distress that older pain drugs. But that data wasn't presented here in depth. Never mind. Trust the drug companies. Plus, several doctors and analysts said that the fear of being sued by a patient with a bleeding ulcer who did not receive a COX-2 would be enough to spur widespread use, despite the lack of an improvement in effectiveness. "It's all marketing, and the marketing is going to be huge," says one hedge fund health-care analyst neither long nor short Merck or Monsanto. "It's going to be based on side effects and liability." Wall Street is whispering that Merck already filed for approval for Vioxx. A company spokeswoman says, "We will file toward the end of the year." When the filing happens is important for Merck. Monsanto received a six-month fast-track review. If the drug is approved before Merck files, Merck cannot receive similar fast-track review and would be stuck with a review that could last a full year. So do you buy Merck at 146 13/16 because of Vioxx? Some investors did, running the stock up before the meeting here. But many of the investors here were wary of touching the shares. They continue to worry about competition to its cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor and AIDS drug Crixivan and patent expirations starting by the next decade. And Monsanto at 39 3/16? After its antiplatelet drug died and in the wake of its rumblings about having to raise money after canceling the merger with American Home Products (AHP:NYSE) in October, investors here were mixed and cautious about the company.