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

To: Asymmetric who wrote (3229)	6/6/1999 1:01:00 AM
From: BDR	Respond to of 10280

fnews.yahoo.com Jun 04, 1999 Shares of Sepracor Rebound as Investors Dig Further Into FDA Scare <Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the FDA issued another untitled letter indicating that Sepracor's claims on behalf of its Xopenex drug were "misleading." The news release sent the shares tumbling to $62. But as Morgan Stanley analyst Doug Lind points out, such letters are routine. Drug companies typically push the envelope in their early marketing claims, then scale back when directed to do so by the agency. In the past year, for example, the FDA issued similar letters to Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY - news) , for Evista, to Zeneca (NYSE:ZEN -news) for tamoxifen, and to Pfizer (NYSE:PFE - news) for Cardura, among many other companies... In other news, Sepracor announced a licensing agreement with UCB Farchim SA, an affiliate of UCB, related to an isomer of Zyrtec, the fast-growing allergy medication. Zyrtec, which was discovered by UCB, is Europe's leading antihistamine, with sales of about $250 million in 1998. Sepracor's deal with UCB for an improved single isomer version of Zyrtec is Sepracor's first European isomer deal. Which suggests, as Warburg Dillon Read analyst Rachel Leheny points out, that Sepracor's single isomer patent strategy is as effective in Europe as the United States. Under terms of the deal, Sepracor receives a royalty on European sales of Zyrtec, which Leheny estimates in the mid-single-digit range. Since Zyrtec's European sales are expected to expand to $500 million from $250 million in a few years, the potential royalties are substantial. Given a launch of the single isomer version in 2001, year 2001 royalties are anticipated at about $5 million, though could easily rise to about $40 million at peak drug sales. > labpuppy.com 6/4/99 Overall the Eli Lilly (LLY) meeting was positive but nothing surprising. Here are a few highlights from the meeting: They don't expect generic competition for Prozac until second half of 2004. They have increased their "share-of-voice" so now Prozac is 1% behind Forest Lab's Celexa. The company pledged that Prozac will gain the number one position in share-of-voice. Once a day formulation of Prozac will be submitted to FDA later this year. Other methods to extend Prozac (i.e. Prozac/Zyprexa combination and Sepracor deal) will be submitted by late 2001 (at earliest)...