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To: Ron Nairn who wrote (7491)	7/7/2001 9:37:00 AM
From: DaveAu	Respond to of 14101

Here's one AIDS vaccine approach that seems to have failed in phase 3: marketwatch.com 7/6/2001 3:21:00 PM (Adds analyst comment in paragraph 4, Aids physician response in paragraph 6, updates share prices; reorganizes paragraphs throughout.) By Ransdell Pierson and Toni Clarke NEW YORK, July 6 (Reuters) - Shares of Immune Response Corp. (IMNR) fell as much as 60 percent on Friday after the fledgling biotechnology company said its partner, Pfizer Inc. (PFE) , is discontinuing development of its experimental Aids drug, Remune. Carlsbad, California-based Immune Response saw its stock fall $1.68, or 36.6 percent, to $2.91 in late afternoon trading on Nasdaq. Earlier in the day they fell as low as $1.80. Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceuticals company, dropped the drug following disappointing clinical trial results. It's an action that could prove fatal for the smaller company, analysts said. "More often than not an event like this is a death blow," said Neil Sweig, an analyst at Ryan, Beck & Co. in New York. "There's a less than fifty-fifty chance that another company will pick up where Pfizer left off." The news doesn't come as a big surprise to AIDS groups. "The majority of the work that's been done on this medication has been disappointing, so I don't think there will be a huge let-down in the community," said Jeff Myers, medical director of the Valley Health Care Center, which provides care to AIDS patients on behalf of the nonprofit Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "I don't think Remune's demise is going to leave a huge hole in terms of what we need to battle this disease." Pfizer's relationship with Immune Response began, indirectly, in June 1998, when Immune Response agreed to co-develop Remune with Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. Agouron was later acquired by Warner-Lambert Co., which in turn was bought last summer by Pfizer. In dropping Remune, Pfizer is conducting the typical pruning that follows an acquisition, Swieg said. "Pfizer had been saying at various meetings that the jury was still out on Remune, and in the end they obviously decided it didn't fit into their research and development program," he said. Immune Response received $47 million from Pfizer and Agouron to develop Remune, according to Laura Hansen, a spokeswoman for Immune Response. At the end of the first quarter, the company had $21 million left in cash, enough to fund operations through the end of 2001, Hansen said. In 1995, Immune Response licensed rights to develop and sell Remune in Southeast Asia to Trinity Medical Group USA, Inc. (TMGU) , a Rancho Santa Margarita, California-based firm whose shares are traded on the NASD's over-the-counter bulletin board. On June 15, Trinity said it had presented data at a scientific meeting in Toulon, France, that suggested the drug was safe and indicated nearly two-thirds of HIV-infected patients could derive some benefit from Remune as the sole treatment for HIV. But Trinity has not yet unveiled any data about survival trends among patients in the trial, which to-date has lasted 132 weeks and still includes 223 patients of 297 from an original study group. Nor has Trinity detailed whether levels of the HIV virus have declined in the study group. Remune, which is injected every three months, is made from a deactivated HIV virus that has been stripped of its so-called gp120-protein coat. The drug is designed to rebuild the immune systems of HIV-infected patients. While Immune Response shares were being beaten down on Friday, Pfizer's shares were up rose 27 cents, or 0.68 percent, to $40.03 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. REUTERS Rtr 15:21 07-06-01