Agouron Pushes Viracept Towards Pivotal Trials

Agouron is making considerable progress with its antiviral and anticancer research programs, and 1996 should see several early and pivotal trials being put into place, said company president and chief executive, Peter Johnson, at the Hambrecht & Quist 14th Annual Life Science Conference in San Francisco, USA, on January 8.

Foremost amongst these new programs will be Viracept (nelfinavir mesylate; formerly AG1343), Agouron's protease inhibitor for the treatment of HIV infection, which has now completed a series of pilot Phase II studies. From the latest of these studies, the company has found that 750mg and 100mg doses of the drug, taken three times daily, produce significantly greater reductions in HIV than previous studies which used lower doses, and Agouron is now in a position to select one or more dose levels to use in large-scale trials of the drug which are planned for next month.

Agouron is pressing ahead with its pivotal trial, perhaps a little earlier than it would like, because it is trailing products from three other companies, Hoffmann-La Roche, Abbott Laboratories and Merck & Co, which have either been approved or are nearing approval in the USA and elsewhere. Roche's Invirase (saquinavir) was first to market (Marketletter December 11, 1995), while Abbott filed an application to market ritonavir in the USA on December 21. Merck says it is close to making first applications for its Crixivan (indinavir) product.