Eisai Declines on Delay Preparing Cancer Drug Filing (Update2)

Eisai Co. drop the most in two years
in Tokio trading after the Nipponese drugmaker was forced to
delay seeking U.S. blessing for its first potentiality new medicine
since the Aciphex tummy ulceration treatment was released in 1999.

A 3rd form of patient surveys is required on Eisai's
experimental breast malignant neoplastic disease treatment before it can use to the
Food and Drug Administration, the Tokyo-based company said after
markets closed on Feb. 1. It had requested bypassing that step,
enabling a reappraisal as early as last quarter. Eisai now anticipates to
seek Food and Drug Administration blessing in the twelvemonth ending March 2010, it said.

The hold is frustrating Eisai President Haruo Naito's
attempts to develop replacements to Aciphex and Aricept, the
company's best-selling treatment for Alzheimer's disease. Aricept sales, which accounted for 40 percentage of grouping gross
last quarter, will slouch once the drug loses patent of invention protection
in the U.S. inch November 2010.

''The development hold is a disappointment,'' said
Hirohisa Shimura, an equities analyst at UBS Securities Japan
Ltd., inch a Feb. One report. ''Prospects for developing a new drug
candidate for Alzheimer's are also getting worse. Eisai may be
forced to concentrate on other stand-in compounds.''

Eisai, Japan's fourth-largest drugmaker, plunged as much as
260 yen, or 5.9 percent, to 4,130 hankering on the exchange, the
biggest diminution since Feb. 17, 2006. The shares drop 240 yen, or
5.5 percent, to 4,150 hankering at 1:15 p.m. local time.

Mizuho Securities Co. health-care analyst Hiroshi Tanaka
cut his evaluation on Eisai shares to ''reduce'' from ''hold,'' and
at least three brokerage firms lowered their terms mark for the
shares after the company's announcement.

Bristol-Myers

The Food and Drug Administration refused to hasten a reappraisal of Eisai's drug, known
as E7389 or eribulin mesylate, after the federal agency granted Bristol-
Myers Squibb Co. accelerated blessing for a similar treatment
last year, Eisai said.

New York-based Bristol-Myers won Food and Drug Administration blessing in October
for Ixempra, an injectable drug to handle the most advanced form
of breast malignant neoplastic disease and the first new type of chemotherapy for the
disease in 14 years.

The Food and Drug Administration granted Ixempra, also known as ixabepilone,
priority reappraisal last June, reducing the blessing procedure to six
months from at least 10, because of its possible to handle unmet
medical needs.

Women life in North United States have got the peak charge per unit of
breast cancer. About 180,000 new lawsuits were diagnosed in the U.S.
last year, and more than than 40,000 women died from the
disease, according to the American Cancer Society. Worldwide,
about 1.15 million new lawsuits of breast malignant neoplastic disease are diagnosed
annually, and 475,000 women die.

Eribulin mesylate incorporates a man-made word form of a substance
first scattered from a type of marine sponge in 1992, according
to Eisai. The Nipponese drugmaker is also investigating whether
its medical specialty can assist a broader scope of patients, including
those with prostate gland and lung cancer.

To reach the newsman on this story:
Kanoko Matsuyama in Tokio at at