To: Jongmans who wrote (441 ) 7/11/1999 11:12:00 PM From: RCMac Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 579
Finally, SIBI/BMY Alzheimer's collaboration will begin clinical trials by year-end. Thursday's report about ELN(Athena)'s work toward an Alzheimer's vaccine took all the headlines (lots of chatter on CNBC, lead stories on TV network news, WSJ and other major newspaper articles, etc), but the WSJ article also noted the good news that BMY would begin clinical trials of SIBI's anti-amyloid plaque protease inhibitor drug candidate: "[I]f initial safety trials go well [BMY] will quickly move into large-scale tests of effectiveness. In a high-risk gambit to get a drug to market faster, the company will simultaneously conduct four large trials . . . rather than the more typical procedure of conducting consecutive rounds of efficacy trials. . . . The trials will involve several thousand patients and last as long as two years." (WSJ 7/8/99, p. A8, continuation of ELN/Alzheimer's article on front page - hardcopy, sorry, I don't access the interactive edition). BMY will apparently be spending serious money on these trials. Its apparent strong commitment to development hasn't, I believe, been publicized before now. The 4/30/99 SIBI 10-K noted only that the "most advanced compounds from this [BMY Alzheimer's] collaboration are in pre-clinical development" [p. 10, see also table from p.6, included in post #308 on this thread Message 8680842 . Rick Harmon's post #384 noted that SIBI IR was still saying early this month that SIBI "expected to hear of clinical plans soon" techstocks.com , Rick having earlier muttered a couple of times about how tight-lipped SIBI was being about this collaboration , e.g. techstocks.com ) On the ELN/Athena effort, see also: techstocks.com --RCM