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Biotech / Medical : Neurobiological Tech (NTII) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BRAVEHEART who wrote (390)	11/19/1998 2:59:00 PM
From: Dr. John M. de Castro	Respond to of 1494

Jeffrey, Good question regarding the Orphan Drug status. I don't know the answer. I'm also not sure as to exactly what are the rules for that designation. I'll have to check. AIDS Dementia is very common. So, I'm not sure whether it would qualify as an Orphan Drug. Your point that memantine could be used as a prophylactic for AIDS Dementia is also a good one. I'd think that it would be prudent for an HIV positive individual to take memantine along with the cocktail drugs. I doubt that NTII will get this on the label from the FDA since they are not testing it as a preventative. But, the physicians caring for the HIV positive patients may well choose to use it that way. In any case, whether it is used for prevention or only for those diagnosed with dementia, memantine will have to be taken for a long period of time by a large number of individuals. This could make it a cash cow for NTII. John de C

To: BRAVEHEART who wrote (390)	11/19/1998 7:50:00 PM
From: Dr. John M. de Castro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1494

NTII is the headline story in the Nov. 18 BioWorld Today entitled "Neurobiological's Dementia Drug Encouraging in Phase III". The article is an excellent one. It is fair, balanced, and accurate. Most of it reviews the results from Merz' Phase III memantine trial for dementia. "In this European trial, 166 care dependent, severely demented patients (49% patients with Alzheimers disease and 51% with vascular or mixed-type dementia) received a 10-mg oral dose of memantine or a placebo for 12 weeks." "76% of the patients receiving memantine improved in the primary evaluation of Clinical Global Evaluation of Change as compared to 45% of those receiving the placebo." "the results are particularly encouraging because the treated population is a difficult one in which to bring about any sort of positive change." The article goes on to explain what an immense market is present with about 4 million American affected. The article then presents the other side of the story, which is the liquidity woes of NTI. It goes on to explain some of the alternatives being explored including: 1) finding a corporate investor 2) a private placement 3) an investment from Merz 4) a corporate partner. All in all a very nice piece. I'm a bit surprised that NTII didn't get a bit of a pop from it. But, then again, I'm not sure what the circulation of BioWorld Today is. John de C