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Biotech / Medical : Zonagen (zona) - good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BDR who wrote (6364)	4/12/1999 7:10:00 AM
From: Linda Kaplan	Respond to of 7041

Well said. I never realized that zero sales could be positive for Vasomax. Perhaps they wanted to save its strength for the big push in the US. An excellent example of ZONA Long Logic. --Linda

To: BDR who wrote (6364)	4/13/1999 12:40:00 AM
From: Bruce Rosen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7041

Dale, some weeks back I posted my interpretation of events in Mexico. You can check posts 6209 and 6211 if you wish. Allow me to summarize my analysis. As many shorts at the time of Mexican approval pointed out, Mexico is a poor third world country much of whose population lives on a subsistence level. It is about as far from an optimum market as possible for lifestyle drugs such as Vasomax or Viagra. Schering knows this. As far as I know, not one credible source has shown that Schering has done any advertising, marketing or PR in Mexico. This despite the fact that Schering is known for its very aggressive approach to marketing. Since Schering did nothing to promote this drug, it is logical to conclude that they never viewed the Mexican market as worth spending the resources necessary to exploit what little potential it had. When I made that point, the response I got was that some longs on this thread at the time the 2Q 98 sales were announced, proclaimed those sales as a precursor of tremendous future Mexican sales. It was as if since posters on SI thought sales to Mexico would be great, this meant that Schering was trying to make that so. They then interpreted the lack of 3Q and 4Q sales to mean that Vasomax was a failure, even in the face of a complete lack of marketing on Schering's part. That is what makes their arguments specious. I believe that this board has become so personal to some people, that they can't seperate speculation from reality. The reality is that Schering never made any serious marketing attempts in Mexico. If I am wrong and such attempts were made, please show me. I believe Scherings real intent in Mexico was to accumulate information to help them with their marketing of Vasomax in the U.S and western Europe. That is where the true battle will be waged. It is clear that Schering is trying to let Pfizer know as little as possible about their marketing plan. No doubt, Schering will attempt to exploit the weaknesses of Viagra. The main weakness of Viagra is its sizable side effect profile. It cannot be taken by people on nitrates. It causes headaches in some people and stomach upset in others. There have been reports of liver problems with some users. The professional ophthalmologic association has warned against its use due to reported vision problems, such as a blue tinge. Numerous deaths have been associated with its use. Would not getting more information about Vasomax in relation to these problems be of some benefit to Schering? Do you think Schering's sales force could exploit this with real world data showing that Vasomax is free of these problems or has them on a much smaller scale? It is my understanding that data is often gathered long after some drugs are approved by following patients who are taking it. Could not Schering derive some benefits from this? Another possible reason for the Mexican release could be to test the quality of the manufacturing process on a smaller scale. Perhaps Schering wanted further confirmation of Vasomax's faster time of onset. This could be an important marketing advantage. All of this could explain why Schering was reported to be selling this on a buy one, get three free basis. If that is how they marketed it, it would seem that generating immediate profits was not a concern. It would however make it easier for doctors to prescribe it and those patients they selected, to afford it, thus making the gathering of this information easier. The reason for doing this informally in Mexico, rather than in formal clinical trials in the U.S., is one of cost. Formal trials can be very expensive. Following patients in Mexico, where approval was already granted, would allow at least some costs to be recovered and information to be gathered more cheaply and on a larger scale. At this price, the risk to the shorts is far greater than that to the longs, IMHO, of course. Good luck, Bruce