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Biotech / Medical : Monsanto Co. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: twt who wrote (1186)	2/16/1999 3:07:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 2539

From Merrill Lynch's Weekly Prescription Trends (Feb. 16): Investment Highlights Cox-2 Inhibitors: Pfizer/Monsanto's Celebrex is off to a great start with 91,466 (+98.3%) new prescriptions written for the week of February 5. This product will be officially launched next week. 01/25 01/22 01/29 02/05 __________________________________________________________ Celebrex 39 9,490 46,125 91,466 Week/week % change 24,233% 386.0% 98.3% ___________________________________________________________ Source: IMS

To: twt who wrote (1186)	2/17/1999 6:11:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2539

Prescriptions For Monsanto's Arthritis Drug Continue To Rise February 17, 1999 2:16 PM CHICAGO -(Dow Jones)- Monsanto Co.'s arthritis-pain drug Celebrex continues to chalk up new prescriptions at a pace unprecedented for that drug category. In its fourth week on the market, the new medication produced 115,000 prescriptions, up from 83,000 during the third week. It thus continues to rank No. 2 among recent drugs in racking up prodigious early sales. Celebrex lags only Viagra, the impotence drug from Pfizer Inc. (PFE), which achieved 294,000 prescriptions during its fourth week on the market before peaking after three months. Celebrex continues to significantly outpace the fourth-week sales of cholesterol medication Lipitor, the No. 3 recent drug in generating early sales. It entered the market in 1997. Lipitor, sold by Warner-Lambert Co. (WLA), is projected to be a $3 billion drug this year. The prescription figures were supplied by NDC Health Information Services, a leading supplier of market data to the pharmaceutical industry. Monsanto (MTC) co-markets Celebrex with Pfizer, and the two are expected to share profits from the drug. The companies haven't disclosed how profits are to be divided. However, some analysts estimate that Monsanto will keep 55 to 60% of the profit. These rough estimates are based on Wall Street's analysis of the experience with Lipitor, which is also co-marketed with Pfizer. The Celebrex numbers are especially impressive, given that Monsanto, of St. Louis, and Pfizer, of New York, haven't really begun marketing yet. The official beginning of marketing is next week. "Detailing" visits to doctors, along with advertising supporting the drug, will start then. Celebrex is the first of a new class of arthritis drugs known as Cox-2 inhibitors. They act against an enzyme, part of the pain process, that is called cyclooxygenase-2, or Cox-2 for short. The Cox-2 drugs have special promise, in the view of many doctors, because clinical data suggest that these medications may not cause damage to patients' gastrointestinal tracts, as current drugs do. The current pain drugs, called NSAIDs for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, lead to bleeding ulcers in a small minority of patients. Bleeding ulcers sometimes are fatal, and doctors have been looking for a gentler medication for chronic treatment of pain. - By Thomas M. Burton; 201-938-5099 Copyright (c) 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. smartmoney.com