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Biotech / Medical : Pharma News Only (pfe,mrk,wla, sgp, ahp, bmy, lly) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1393)	2/1/1999 8:37:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 1722

(Dow Jones) Monsanto's Celebrex Soars To 55,000 Prescriptions In 2nd Wk By Thomas M. Burton CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Sales of the new Monsanto Co. (MTC) arthritis-pain drug Celebrex continued to soar in its second week on the market, according to prescription-tracking information. The drug, made by Monsanto's Searle pharmaceutical division and co-marketed by Pfizer Inc. (PFE), generated 55,000 prescriptions for the two weeks ending Sunday, Jan. 31. That number far exceeded the slightly fewer than 12,000 prescriptions recorded by Warner-Lambert Co.'s (WLA) cholesterol-lowering Lipitor in its first two weeks of marketing in 1997. Lipitor now is a multibillion-dollar drug, and until Celebrex was No. 2 in generating the highest early sales results. Pfizer's Viagra for impotence still holds the sales record for the first two weeks of marketing, but Viagra sales slowed after several months amid safety concerns. "Celebrex is really becoming a phenomenon," said drug-industry analyst Hemant K. Shah. The prescription sales data were provided to Dow Jones by NDC Health Information Services, a leading provider of health-care information that is able to track prescription sales on a daily basis. Shah said Celebrex had seized 6% of the arthritis-pain prescription drug market by late last week, an unusually dramatic inroad after just two weeks on the market. That success is especially impressive given that several of the leading pain-killers are inexpensive generics, like ibuprofen and naproxen. Celebrex is an especially important drug for Monsanto, which has borrowed heavily to finance its ventures into agriculture-biotechnology and thus needs the income stream from a blockbuster drug. The package-label wording granted to Monsanto by the Food and Drug Administration had been viewed as limiting sales of the drug. But now, Shah and other analysts are saying that Celebrex could very well exceed $1 billion in sales during its first year on the market, which would be an unusual success. Celebrex sales during the week ended Jan. 24 were approximately 10,000 prescriptions.

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (1393)	2/1/1999 8:40:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

Pfizer's Viagra Helps Impotent Diabetics, New Research Shows Bloomberg News Feb 1 1999 6:33PM ET Pfizer's Viagra Helps Impotent Diabetics, New Research Shows Chicago, Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., the fourth- largest U.S. drugmaker, could benefit from company-funded research showing its Viagra drug can treat impotent diabetics. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offers reassurance to patients with erectile dysfunction who also suffer from diabetes and want to take Viagra. Nearly 16 million Americans have diabetes, and impotence is a common problem among diabetic men. Researchers led by Marc Rendell of the Creighton Diabetes Center in Omaha, Nebraska, found that 56 percent of patients taking Viagra reported improved erections, compared to 10 percent of patients taking a placebo. In addition, 61 percent of men in the Viagra group reported they successfully had intercourse at least once, compared with 22 percent of men taking a placebo. The most common side effects among the 252 patients who completed the study were headache, indigestion and respiratory problems such as sinus congestion, the researchers said. Pfizer won approval for Viagra last year, and the drug quickly became a household name. It had sales of $411 million in its first three months on the market, making its market introduction the most successful ever. Last quarter, the drug had sales of $236 million. --Kristin Jensen in Chicago through the Princeton newsroom (609) 279-4000/gfh Story illustration: To graph Pfizer's stock activity in the past year: PFE US snap.com