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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brander who wrote (7778)	6/2/1999 5:21:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 9523

Scientists design drugs for liver spots, hair loss By Steve Sternberg / USA TODAY June 2, 1999 The folks who snapped the male world to attention with Viagra are racing to produce the world's first "cosmeceuticals" -- drugs designed specifically to fight liver spots, hair loss and wrinkles. The scientists, financed by New York-based Pfizer, are inventing a whole field of research by applying the most powerful new tools of biological science to the old bugaboos of unsightly blemishes, baldness and sun-damaged skin. In a year, they plan to begin the first human trials of a topical ointment that blocks the biological process that leads to liver spots. One or two years later, they hope to begin similar trials of a compound that switches on the scalp's hair-making machinery and another that smoothes out wrinkles. "We're taking modern drug discovery technology and applying it to cosmetics," says Colin Goddard, the chief executive officer of OSI Pharmaceuticals in Uniondale, N.Y. Last week, OSI announced it will get a six-year infusion of $50 million from Pfizer, maker of the impotence drug Viagra, to back the venture. "The really quite interesting aspect of this is that it is a new area of endeavor for the pharmaceuticals industry," Goddard says. "We think quality-of-life products will be very important and financially rewarding into the next century. We think these products will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- even billions of dollars -- in the marketplace." Goddard says the demand will come from the baby boomers who made Viagra so successful. It was Viagra's success, he says, that prompted Pfizer "to explore something that's entrepreneurial and out of the mainstream." Pfizer three years ago formed a "virtual" company, Anaderm Research, to serve as an umbrella for executives from Pfizer, OSI and four skin experts from New York University, who contribute ideas and research expertise to the venture. Goddard and NYU's Irwin Freedberg, the university's chairman of dermatology and a limited partner in the venture, declined to discuss specifics of the experimental compounds, fearing that they would tip off competitors. But they disclosed generally how they might work. For instance, they say, it is well-known how the skin makes the pigment melanin. The challenge is to develop an ointment that can be absorbed into the skin and interrupt the biochemical cascade that deposits excess melanin in the skin, forming liver spots. OSI is attempting to winnow its roster of candidate compounds to the one that works the best. When this process is complete, the company will apply to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to conduct human trials. detnews.com:80/1999/health/9906/02/06020020.htm