Hi John,
I appreciate your insight on this matter. The quote is suggestive is it not.
Mr. Donnelly. ''My role is to help the AIDS community follow the progress of the current Phase II trial of Memantine. It is definitely too early to pronounce this trial a success or a failure. Patients do not know whether they are receiving Memantine or placebo. However, I am hopeful. As a member of the ACTG, participants in the trial contacted me to request a longer open-label phase of dosing. I am working with other members to achieve such a longer open-label phase.''
I would also like to point out the more obvious factor's. That AIDS is becoming a Chronic disease with much longer survival rates. That there is no other theraputics outside of Memantine in clinical trials to treat AIDS related dementia. Finally, that while better treatments are becoming available for AIDS generally they fail to treat the neurodegenerative effects associated with the disorder.
The quotes sum this up best...
Michael Donnelly, a member of the ACTG, said, "AIDS is changing in character to a chronic disease. We are seeing that neurological complications tend to persist even with optimal antiretroviral therapies. Therefore, the medical need for treatments for AIDS-related dementia and neuropathy is likely to increase"
Progressive decline of motor and cognitive skills is associated with multiple central nervous system disorders, including neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and infection of the central nervous system (CNS) with HIV, the virus associated with AIDS. There are currently no available treatments to prevent or reverse the neurological impairment associated with these conditions. Current AIDS therapies, even if effective at reducing the circulating virus level, do not appear to be effective at preventing AIDS-induced damage to the CNS.
Paul E. Freiman, president and chief executive officer of NTI, "Memantine, which has a history of safe clinical use in Germany, is currently the only drug in clinical development in the U.S. for the treatment of AIDS dementia."
I sure wish I could still accumulate NTII at .50. While still considerably cheap I cannot imagine the stock at these levels much longer based on recent developments over the past six months. I certainly hope the stock trades to say 1.5 or better pre- collaboration. I personally believe if NTII pulls down significant cash with MERZ in a Big Pharma collaboration we could possibly see this stock tradeing between $2 and $3.5 again.
The cost cutting has been equally significant. Let's face it .08 as opposed to .20 is evidence that we are looking at a entirely differnt investment than that of a year ago. One which is run extremely efficiently while managing to advance two drugs for three seperate indications into P-2 testing.
Again hat's off to Paul Freiman. Bravo good man!!!
Jeffrey |
