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

To: Andreas Samson who wrote (18322)	1/29/1999 2:50:00 AM
From: VLAD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

Andreas, Although Sweden is but one small European country it is only one of the few countries where we can see exactly how MUSE can do against Viagra if well marketed. England is one of the largest European countries and I believe that its rebound to 34% gives even more credibility to the ability of a strong marketing partner to be able to market MUSE along side of Viagra. What this tells me is that if Astra was able to rebound MUSE sales to preViagra levels, then a decent domestic partner should be able to get domestic MUSE prescriptions to above 1997 peak levels. Why? Because MUSE was available in England Since February 1998 without Viagra but marketed by a strong partner and now we are back to the preViagra levels as seen in September of 1998. MUSE was able to achieve an average of 16,800 total weekly scripts in 1997 with no advertising, and a 50 man sales force calling on urologists only. What would have this number been if MUSE was not in short supply in the first 1/2 of 1997 and marketed in full force by a big pharma calling on all the PCPs? Lets assume it could have been triple or about 50,000. Let's say Viagra then comes out and the MUSE scripts initially go down but within 3 months rebound to the original count of 50,000. Yes, I know my number is a bit overly optimistic but I think I make my point regarding the difference effective marketing can make. The shorts have done a wonderful job since the December'97 drop disseminating lies about the product and scaring many investors into selling. Vivus did a piss poor job protecting its product's reputation and being totally naive of the way short sellers were destroying the stock price through their manipulative techniques of disseminating false information about MUSE. I can not stress how much it pisses me off that Vivus ignored the Asensio report and also how it took them several days to respond to that Texan urologist who presented his bs study at the AUA meeting last June. Vivus knew about this study well before the meeting and was totally unprepared to immediately reply to the press releases disseminated by the shorts immediately after the lecture was held. At that time, it was the bad press from this study that gave Vivus stock severe technical damage as it dropped under 9 and continued to bleed down to under 6 before the brief pop to 10 after the PW upgrade in July. Point is that the stock would have probably held its base in the 9 to 11 range if Vivus had a clue as to how to deal with the shorts and their misinformation.

To: Andreas Samson who wrote (18322)	1/29/1999 5:20:00 AM
From: 777 Captain	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

Thank you Andreas for challenging the assumptions made by others. I have noticed that there is a real tendency on this thread to remain bullish in spite of the facts, e.g., low stock price, one product, poor management, lack of communication, the list goes on. Had you been posting more frequently for the past year or so, there is a chance that some of those currently holding VVUS from much higher levels wouldn't have allowed themselves to get into such a predicament. From what I can determine, everything you've said has been unvarnished truth. Forget about manipulation, and everything else, fact is that there's not enough buy orders out there to break the hold (if there is one) that exists. I do believe there's some serious efforts at keeping the price where it is. Whether it succeeds remains to be seen. So far both my trades in VVUS have been profitable. None of them took this long. Hoping to walk away three for three. Enough said. Appreciate your insights, and encourage you to continue posting. Regards.