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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (6117)	8/30/2001 11:38:49 AM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6136

IMNR was my first short, one of very few ever (three?), in January 1992. Predicted, years ago, in this thread (and even earlier in misc.invest.stocks, as this crappy project has been roundly criticized for years).......... Thursday August 30, 11:22 am Eastern Time Immune Response abandons pivotal AIDS drug trial (UPDATE: Adds background, analyst comment; share reaction) By Jed Seltzer and Toni Clarke NEW YORK, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Immune Response Corp. (NasdaqNM:IMNR - news) on Thursday said it will discontinue trials of its experimental AIDS drug, Remune, a move welcomed by investors who have become tired of seeing money thrown at a drug that fared poorly in previous trials. Immune Response said it will abandon Study 202, a mid-stage clinical trial initiated by its former partner, Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., a unit of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE - news). The company said it does not believe Remune would have met its efficacy targets. Shares of Immune Response rose 6 percent to $2.30 in early trading Thursday on the Nasdaq, but later moved down to $2.23. Last month Pfizer dropped its partnership with Immune Response to develop Remune, sending shares of the small biotech firm plummeting 42 percent. Pfizer's action came after a Phase II, or mid-stage, clinical trial in Spain showed the drug failed to meet its targets. The shares have since fallen an additional 6 percent. ``The drug has had a lot of problems and people just didn't think it was working, so investors are glad the company won't be plowing a lot more research money into the project,'' said Carl Gordon, a biotech analyst for OrbiMed Advisors in New York. The company said on Thursday, however, that a new study contradicts earlier results and shows that Remune did, in fact, meet its targets in the study in Spain. It cited statistics from an independent data safety monitoring board which determined that the drug met its target of showing a statistically significant improvement in time before the patients' condition worsened. The company's initial results included the treatment time, but not the complete follow-up time of all patients. The analysis also did not embody the ``intent-to-treat'' premise, which holds that data from every patient enrolled in the study, at all time points, be included in the analysis. Carlsbad, California-based Immune Response said it is debating whether to try to launch the drug in Europe. It said it will hold discussions with regulatory authorities in Europe and the United States to discuss possible options. Remune, a ``therapeutic vaccine'' made from a deactivated HIV virus that has been stripped of its protein coat, was designed to coach the body's immune system to find the HIV virus in an infected patient and attack it. Gordon said many investors had already lost faith in Remune. The concomitant decline in Immune Response's shares has triggered a lawsuit against the company. All eyes will remain focused, meanwhile, on Merck & Co. (NYSE:MRK - news), the U.S. drug giant which is in the early stages of testing a preventive HIV vaccine in humans.