Nortran Pharmaceuticals Inc. Announces Breakthrough Non-Narcotic Cough Drug Enters Clinical Testing
Wednesday June 16, 6:15 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--Nortran Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Canadian drug discovery company, announced today that its non-narcotic drug for the treatment of acute cough is being administered to healthy volunteers in a first-time clinical trial. In pre-clinical experiments the drug has proven to be highly effective in preventing acute cough.
Acute cough is compulsive, unproductive coughing, commonly associated with asthma, lung cancer and certain forms of emphysema. This is a serious medical condition, affecting an estimated 64 million people worldwide every year (x). Medical specialists treating respiratory illnesses at present have no effective non-narcotic therapy to offer their patients.
Bob Rieder, president of Nortran Pharmaceuticals, comments: ''Current acute cough treatments are either ineffective or narcotic. This means that our drug is targeted at a marketplace that is effectively empty. Our drug appears to work by a novel mechanism, which blocks the initiation of the cough signal at the local nerve endings in the airways.'' Nortran's drug, which is delivered by inhalation, has proven to be effective in treating acute cough in laboratory experiments. There are no narcotic side-effects.
Bob Rieder continues: ''We are particularly encouraged by the potentially fast clinical testing path for this drug. The nature of the cough condition results in fast, low-costing clinical testing. We have the potential to start a phase two (dosage testing) trial in late 1999 and a phase three trial (comparative efficacy) in mid-2000.''
The clinical testing is being conducted in Edinburgh, Scotland by Inveresk Research, one of the world's leading clinical research organizations. Inveresk started to administer the drug to healthy volunteers for the project on June 15. Reporting on the initial results will is expected to begin in September, 1999.
Nortran Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a commercially focused drug discovery company. Using pathology-targeted molecules, Nortran focuses on developing drugs for treatment of serious medical conditions and illnesses affecting large numbers of people. Nortran's current drugs in development target life-threatening arrhythmias of the heart, acute cough and pain management.
(x) Wind River Partner Acute Cough Market Assessment, 1998
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Bob Rieder, Chief Executive Officer
Warning: The Company Relies on Litigation Protection for ''Forward-Looking'' Statements.
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Contact:
Nortran Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Graham Taylor
(604) 222-5577
Website: www.nortran.com
E-mail: admin@nortran.com
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