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Biotech / Medical : Sepracor-Looks very promising -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: M. Ramle who wrote (2832)	5/18/1999 4:54:00 PM
From: Biomaven	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10280

Mazen, Here's my take on how they could market nora: 1. They could go it alone, with their existing respiratory sales force that would end up selling 3 products (Xopenex in multiple forms, ICE formoterol and nora). They would certainly sell a whole lot less of the drug, but keep essentially all the profits. They might have to compete somewhat on price in this scenario, undercutting Claritin by a little. My guess is that they could sell $100m a year this way, with a fairly slow ramp-up. Start-up costs would be high ($50m?). 2. They could partner with someone like Glaxo and really fight it out with Claritin. Nora is clearly much more attractive for someone like Glaxo compared with J&J, because Glaxo already has the sales force in place. They would probably have to give up close on 50%. This would likely be a better outcome than J&J co-promoting, because Glaxo would sell more. 3. They could go with a smaller company with an existing sales force. Dura comes to mind, although they might end up competing for the albuterol market. The very recent deal between QTRN and CVTX for ranolozine is also of interest. (In fact, every biotech with an unpartnered product in Phase III should be looking closely at that deal). This would end up somewhere between choices 1 and 2. None of these choices would be bad. My guess is that they won't rush into a deal unless they decide they absolutely have to for credibility's sake. Peter