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

To: Curt Whitaker who wrote (16851)	12/11/1998 12:49:00 PM
From: David Paul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

Stockholm, Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Astra AB, Sweden's No. 1 drugmaker which this week announced plans for a $37.2 billion merger with the U.K.'s Zeneca Group Plc, said it won European approval for a new impotence treatment called Muse. Muse, a pellet that's inserted into the urethra at the head of the penis, will compete with Pfizer Inc.'s blockbuster oral impotence drug Viagra, as well as older treatments such as Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc.'s Caverject, a drug injected by syringe into the penis. Analysts said Muse will have a tough time competing against Viagra, whose sales rocketed after approval last April in the U.S., generating $411 million in second-quarter revenue. Although Viagra has been linked to dozens of deaths in people taking other drugs or with existing health problems, it's easier to use and thus more desirable in a market that could grow to be worth $4 billion a year as new drugs are launched, analysts said. ''Muse is the kind of thing you would resort to only if you had a serious problem,'' said Paul Diggle, an analyst with SG Securities, who forecast Muse annual sales of about $100 million by 2005. ''I don't think Pfizer is going to get too worried.'' Astra holds exclusive marketing and distribution rights to Muse in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere from Vivus Inc., a California biotechnology company that invented the drug. Astra this week said it agreed to unite with Zeneca, the U.K.'s No. 3 drugmaker, in a stock-swap merger valued at $37.2 billion, in a move both companies said would boost their product lines and lead to cost savings. Analysts say both companies need new products to supplant the sales loss after patents expire for major drugs like Astra's antiulcer drug Losec, the world's best-selling prescription drug,