Biota's Flu Drug To Enter Phase III

Biota Holdings and its development partner Glaxo Wellcome are to beginPhase III trials with Biota's intranasal influenza drug zanamivir (GG167). The first trials will commence in Australia in May this year, and two more efficacy trials will be initiated in the northern hemisphere in October.

Zanamivir will be administered twice daily for five days in the trials, and will utilize GW's Diskhaler technology which delivers the drug throughout the respiratory tract, targeting the site of infection. Phase II trial data released to date show that the drug offered a shortened time to relief of influenza compared to placebo (Marketletter May 13, 1996). Worldwide filing of zanamivir is expected to take place in the second half of 1998.

Influenza treatments amantidine and rimantidine are currently available on prescription, but are only effective against the A strain and not the B strain of the virus, and resistance to the drugs is fast developing.