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

To: DAVID who wrote (21297)	4/23/1999 8:54:00 PM
From: Mkilloran	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

David...it was very clearly stated in the conf call in Jan that the distribution rights to Muse was the only thing that Astra and Janssen had. Alibra is a whole new deal. Given the advances of Alibra over Muse it would be a good bet that Astra/Zeneca and Janssen would want to extend their marketing of Muse with Alibra. The reduced expense to produce Alibra may afford larger markups than MUSE even if the cost to the end consumer is reduced. The origional deals to assign sales rights for Muse to Janssen and Astra go back to 1996/97. The most likely time for Astra/Zeneca and Janssen to negotiate a deal for the rights to sell Alibra is as they complete Phase III trials IMO. USA and Japan are the only two major countries that Vivus has not sold any rights to sell MUSE todate. The USA/Japan partners would want rights to both products now. This was not an option back in 1996/1997 when only MUSE was close to becoming approved by the FDA.

To: DAVID who wrote (21297)	4/25/1999 4:46:00 PM
From: DaiS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23519

DAVID, Regarding cost of Alibra, my 25%...I was talking about the cost to make Alibra. The major cost in Muse is the active ingredient alprostadil. Most Muse users use the 500ug or 1000ug doses. Alibra has 125ug that is 25% or 12.5% the amount of alprostadil in these two Muse doses. Of course there are other costs...but also production savings since Alibra is one dose. I thought that my 25% was a reasonable stab. I was hoping therefore that Alibra could match the price of, or be cheaper than, viagra for the consumer. Regarding distribution rights of Alibra, my understanding has always been that expressed by Mkilloran, that is that Vivus currently has no agreement about Alibra. As you, I find it impossible to comprehend how AstraZeneca can possibly allow/afford Vivus to cut an Alibra deal with anyone else. Astra, on their new website, developed just before the legal merger do make a big splash about Muse/Bondil, it is definitely not a casual mention tucked in the background...I even thought to interpret it as a warm gesture to Vivus<g>. Anyway does not seem to me that Astra are looking to wash there hands of ED treatments! Months ago, before Christmas my big fear was that Astra might have hoped for Vivus bankruptcy to pick up rights for peanuts. I'm more relaxed now...Vivus could survive for years with no US/Japan/China deal with time to develop their other products. Sportakus on yahoo as raised the Eli Lilly possibility again. Always possible that Vivus cuts Alibra deals separately with AZ, Janssen and Eli. The AUA study giving evidence of strong positive interaction between Muse and Viagra cannot have been missed by Lilly and ICOS. Lilly could promote combo...something that neither Vivus nor Pfizer could do directly as BigK pointed out! In British Sunday Mail today, most negative viagra article I have ever seen. Viagra revenue very much lower than even the NHS thought...attributed to health worries AND that Viagra does not work as well as was hyped...Pfizer spokesman Burroughs attributes low uptake to fact that once these middle aged men get going again with sex they happy to have it ever 2-3 months not every 1-2 weeks. The article also said that Viagra not now used much by young men as enhancer...actually I am not convinced by this.. Sex every month or so could, from the script data, make the number of regular Muse users in the US 50-100K...also there is the point that declining scripts does not necessarily mean declining number of regular users. DaiS