Subject: Early Tests Show Protein May Fight Anemia in AIDS
Date: Published: 5/4/87 120 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Early Tests Show
   Protein May Fight
   Anemia in AIDS
    ---
   Research Suggests GM-CSF
   Blocks Reproduction
   Of HIV Virus as Well
    ---
   By Marilyn Chase
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   SAN DIEGO -- Scientists reported early tests show a new
 human protein can successfully treat the problem of anemia in
patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
   Jerome Groopman, a researcher at the New England Deaconess
Hospital in Boston, told scientists at a meeting here he
treated 16 AIDS patients with the protein, a blood-cell
growth factor called GM-CSF.  He said all patients' white
blood-cell counts resumed normal levels.
   Side effects included mild aches, chills, and fever.
Phlebitis, an inflammation of the veins, occurred in four
patients.
   The protein, naturally produced by the body in small
amounts, was synthesized by gene-splicing techniques at
Genetics Institute Inc. of Cambridge, Mass.  It is licensed to
Sandoz Inc., the Hanover, N. J., pharmaceutical concern that
funded the clinical trial.
   Dr. Groopman's findings, if borne out in further tests,
are important because a low white-blood-cell count invites
infections that can be fatal to those whose immune systems
are weakened by AIDS, cancer chemotherapy or other disorders.
   As previously reported, tests of GM-CSF against cancer
began at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, using a version
of the protein made by Immunex Corp. of Seattle.
   Anemia is a double-barreled problem for AIDS patients, who
often suffer a lowered white count from the syndrome itself.
In addition, a lowered white count is a complication of
 therapy with Burroughs-Wellcome Co. 's AZT -- the only drug so
far approved to treat the fatal disorder.  Burroughs-Wellcome
 is a unit of Wellcome PLC, Britain.
   Dr. Groopman said the drug may also block reproduction of
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. 
   He said five out of nine patients in the test experienced
a drop in viral proteins in their blood after treatment with
GM-CSF. Three patients had no change, and one showed an
increase.  However, GM-CSF needs more study before it can be
considered an anti-viral drug.
   Dr. Groopman stressed his early results warrant further
study in an expanded group of patients with both AIDS and a
variety of malignancies, including lung cancer, breast cancer
and lymphoma.
    "The question is whether GM-CSF will improve host
defenses," Dr. Groopman said.
   Yet to be proven is whether the protein will live up to
its performance in the test tube, where it has shown it may
prevent infection-fighting cells from migrating from an
infection site, and may boost the tumor-fighting capability
of killer cells.
   Test results so far, however, were good news for both the
company and AIDS patients.
   Despite Dr. Groopman's refusal to preview his results to
non-scientists until Saturday's meeting of the American
Society of Clinical Investigation, apparent leaks to Wall
 Street from other sources sparked near-doubling of Genetics
Institute's stock price, from the low 20's in January to the
low 40's in recent weeks.
   In national over-the-counter trading Friday, Genetics
Institute closed at $41.25, down 12.5 cents.
   Also at the conference, scientists from the National
Institutes of Health presented other AIDS drug developments.
   H. Cliff Lane of the National Institute for Allergy and
Infectious Diseases said continuing tests of alpha interferon
induced tumor shrinkage in some patients with Kaposi's
Sarcoma, an AIDS-linked malignancy.  But he noted the drug had
no effect when patient's T4 cells, a type of immune sentry
ravaged by the disease, had fallen below 100 per cubic
millimeter.
   Though manufactured by a number of companies, Alpha
 interferon for the test was supplied by Schering-Plough.
   In addition, two new members of the AZT family of drugs
are advancing through development at the National Cancer
 Institute.  Dideoxyadenosine, or DDA, and Cyanothymidine, or
CNT, like AZT, are false building blocks of DNA that insert
themselves into the virus and interrupt its replication.
   Samuel Broder, NCI's chief of clinical oncology, said he
hopes to launch human trials of DDA this summer because
test-tube studies suggest it is less toxic to the bone marrow
 than is AZT. 
   Saturday's meeting marked the first public mention of CNT,
 which appears as active as AZT in tissue culture, and thus
"should be another candidate for pre-clinical development,"
 Dr. Broder said.
   A presentation about ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s drug
ribaviran prompted a renewal of scientific skepticism about
the drug, however.  Several scientists suggested the patients
receiving a placebo or sugar pill as a control, who should
have been carefully selected to match patients in the drug
group, were perhaps sicker at the outset.  Thus they developed
AIDS much faster, making the drug recipients look good.
   "I wonder how carefully patients were evaluated.  How many
placebo patients may have had brewing cases of (pneumonia)?"
asked Dr. Groopman.
   Peter N. R. Heseltine, a researcher at the University of
Southern California, denied there was any statistical
"manipulation," but conceded that differences in patients' T4
cells, a kind of white blood cell that fights infection, did
affect the disease's progression.  He maintained the drug "has
promise," but needs further study.
   (See:  "Corrections & Amplifications:  Genetics Institute
Inc." -- WSJ May 5, 1987)

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