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Biotech / Medical : Novoste (novt) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zantac who wrote (60)	6/4/1999 8:51:00 AM
From: Oak Tree	Respond to of 100

Your warnings are appreciated. NOVT is a long term stock with excellent eventual prospects. I however think it will be in the mid to low teens in the next few months. Why? The Instent restenosis trial has accrued all the needed patients and we have only to wait the 90 days for the repeat catheterizations. Even if the data is positive, the FDA will still not immediately approve it. The insurance companies will not be fast to pay for it either -- they will say the evidence is insufficient. The realities of marketing will drop the stock value. The betacath study is almost done. We know the study was not convincingly positive since the patient size was increased and they added anticoagulents late in the study. Thus we know the the data safety and monitoring board had real concerns. Non-dramatic data will be used by the insurance companies and even by the FDA to insist on additional studies before approval. For example, the FDA may ask for a 900 patient study with 6 months of anticoagulation. If it takes another year to accrue the patients and patients have to be followed for 9 months rather than the current 3 months -- this will be an expensive and long study. That will drop the stock price and add about 5 million to their expenses. Follow-up for that study will be in about 90 days for both the in-stent and the betacath. Data analysis will be a couple of additional months. So the stock will probably stay in this range for a few more months -- data will come out around thanksgiving. When it does the value of the stock will fall -- and it will probably not recover for another two year or more since the additional studies will be take substantial time.