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Biotech / Medical : InterMune (nasdaq)ITMN -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (246)	5/22/2002 9:16:00 AM
From: tuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 508

Here's the PR for the abstracts; looks good: >>BRISBANE, Calif., May 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- InterMune, Inc. (Nasdaq: ITMN - News) announced today that long-term follow-up data from a Phase II clinical trial of Actimmune® (Interferon gamma-1b) for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) demonstrate a mortality benefit in IPF patients randomly assigned to Actimmune versus control treatment. The data was presented today at the 98th Annual Conference of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) by Ganesh Raghu, M.D., University of Washington, at a symposium on original investigations called "IPF: Potential Markers of Activity and Old and New Treatment." "These long-term survival data bolster our confidence in the earlier results demonstrated in the Phase II IPF trial using interferon gamma-1b," said Dr. Raghu. "These data also support the correlation between changes in lung function and survival." The long-term follow-up included 18 patients from a randomized, controlled, open-label trial of Actimmune, in which sixteen patients received one or more doses of Actimmune following study completion. The Kaplan Meier estimate of survival at five years was 77.8% and 16.7% in the Actimmune and control groups, respectively (log-rank test p=0.009). Other data presented today demonstrate that lung function stabilization correlate significantly with survival in patients with IPF. This late breaker abstract was presented by Dr. HR Collard of the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, who reported that changes in dyspnea, or shortness of breath, and Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) at six and twelve months are statistically significant predictors of survival in IPF. During his presentation, Dr. Raghu also reviewed data suggesting that the prevalence of IPF may be higher than previously reported and that it is a costly disease. The data from a large integrated healthcare claims database assessing the prevalence and economic costs of IPF show that 56 per 100,000 of the age-adjusted population translates into a prevalence of 88,000 IPF patients. In addition, the mean annual healthcare cost per IPF patient is approximately $40,000. "The exciting presentations at this week's ATS meeting provide compelling evidence for and reinforce the potentially important role Actimmune can play in this devastating disease," said W. Scott Harkonen, M.D., President and CEO of InterMune. "InterMune is committed to developing new treatments for what appears to be an even more widespread medical problem than we previously thought through our ongoing Actimmune and pirfenidone programs."<< snip, emphasis mine Cheers, Tuck