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

To: Frostman who wrote (16873)	12/12/1998 1:04:00 PM
From: EyeDrMike	Respond to of 23519

Maybe they are "sitting" on the good stuff, so they can mix it in with the bad stuff, regarding sales numbers and cash on hand, and marketing partner next week.

To: Frostman who wrote (16873)	12/12/1998 2:53:00 PM
From: VLAD	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23519

Frost, Here is my theory: Vivus knew about EU approval at least a week ago and kept silent because of several reasons: 1)They still need to get individual EU country approvals from Spain, Italy, Germany and France before they can technically claim that they are getting the 8M milestone payment. 2)The communications between Vivus and Astra may not have been as good as before since Astra was heavy into Zeneca merger talks. Many at Astra will lose jobs and I bet the morale at Astra probably has been poor for the past few weeks. 3)Vivus as in the past is bad at spreading out the good news. Perhaps they wanted to see if a partnering deal would be complete by mid December so that they could announce all pertinent positive news in one press release. 4)As Mike mentioned, perhaps Vivus did not know if and when a domestic partner deal would happen but they figured that they would save this piece of good news to negate the bad news if no domestic partner is signed by mid December. This would suggest to me that the domestic partner negotiations where at a point where things could go either way but Vivus figured if they didn't get the partner signed at least they had the positive EU news to negate the bad news of no partner being signed. 5)With tax loss selling winding up in December, Vivus may have believed that it is best off to announce any positive news as late into the month as possible so that an increase in stock price is not negated by subsequent tax loss selling. IMO with the $8M milestone and the drastic decrease in overhead the short interest "gamble" that Vivus is in terrible financial trouble and going belly up is now invalid. Even without signing a partner Vivus has a rosier picture ahead since the European market will soon be fully launched by AstraZeneca and domestic sales income will increase from Viagra patients seeking a safer alternative. Also add approval in China in early 1999 which includes another 2M milestone payment and upcoming news on Alibra phase III progress and gene therapy and 1999 should be a good year for Vivus.