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

To: John M. Gelnieau who wrote (17936)	1/19/1999 7:30:00 PM
From: VLAD	Respond to of 23519

John, IMO there is just too many garbage stocks out there with insane evaluations for Vivus to be ignored at these levels. You can compare Vivus to other biotechs and it is a steal. Compare it to blue chips and it is a great bargain. Compare it to the internet stocks and it is just about free. But one thing to remember is that contrary to popular belief this is not a MUSE vs Viagra contest anymore. After another full quarter of side by side sales with Viagra, MUSE proved that Viagra will NOT render it "obsolete" even without a sales force marketing the product. The question now is, with an effect domestic partner and an expanding global market, just how much money can Vivus make in profits looking forward into 1999?

To: John M. Gelnieau who wrote (17936)	1/19/1999 7:48:00 PM
From: VLAD	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23519

To anybody who understands accounting proceedures: Last quarter Vivus wrote off $16M of raw materials which were not really lost but were going to have to be stored into deep freeze. Vivus had contractual obligations to buy raw product from its suppliers regardless of the fact that demand fell sharply over Q2 and Q3. As I understand it, Vivus will now be able to take this material which was written off and use it for future product but it now will not be counted as "cost of goods" since it has been written off in Q3. If this is so, future margins should rise sharply as Vivus is not showing any costs of the $16M of materials which have been written off. This should create a significant improvement on the earnings front in future quarters. I don't know if it will be applied to Q4 but at the very least it should make 1999 earnings look much better than if the material was not written off in Q3 1998. Anybody understand this book keeping on this material write off better than I do?