Here's what the San Diego Union Tribune had to say:
Lidak loses partner in marketing of new drug
Thomas Kupper
STAFF WRITER
01-Jan-1998 Thursday
Lidak Pharmaceuticals said yesterday that marketing partner Bristol-Myers
Squibb had backed out of a deal to market Lidak's cream for oral herpes.
The San Diego company's drug, Lidakol, had stumbled in clinical trials a
year ago, but Lidak completed trials that appeared to put the product back
on track.
Just a week ago, Lidak submitted an application to the Food and Drug
Administration for approval of the product.
"We have no specific explanation for this cancellation, except that it does
not relate to the therapeutic potential of Lidakol," said Lidak chief
executive David H. Katz.
The Lidak deal is the third such collaboration to unravel for San Diego
biotechs in recent weeks, as pharmaceutical companies review their research
portfolios for the new year.
Agouron Pharmaceuticals and Alliance Pharmaceutical saw their stocks tumble
after losing such partnerships for major products. But those products
appeared to be farther from market than Lidakol.
Lidak shares closed unchanged yesterday at $2.37 1/2 before the
announcement.
In the original Lidakol testing, the cream failed to show clearly better
results than the placebo, another compound that eased oral herpes symptoms.
So the company switched to a true placebo that did not ease the symptoms.
Lidak said the new results showed that outbreaks of oral herpes, a common
condition characterized by facial blisters and accompanying itching and
burning, cleared up on average in 4.1 days.
Without treatment, outbreaks typically lasted eight to 10 days. |
