Subject: Genentech Says CD4 Is Found to Be Safe in Preliminary Tests 
Date: Published: 4/25/89 (64 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology:  
    Genentech Says Its AIDS Therapy, CD4,
    Is Found to Be Safe in Preliminary Tests
    ----   
    By Marilyn Chase
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- Preliminary tests of Genentech
 Inc. 's experimental AIDS therapy CD4 "show the drug is safe,"
 according to the company's chief executive officer, Robert
 Swanson.
    Mr. Swanson, in remarks at the company's annual meeting,
 cautioned that "all our work on the drug remains at an early
 stage," adding that CD4 has yet to prove effective as a
 treatment for acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
    A full report of CD4's performance in phase-one clinical
 trials, or the safety portion of human tests, will be
 presented in June at the Fifth International Conference on
 AIDS in Montreal.  In this phase of study, doctors gave the
 synthetic protein to 45 patients, and examined them for toxic
 side effects.  Mr. Swanson told shareholders that scientists
 are poised to start tests of CD4's effectiveness soon.
    Mr. Swanson's report of little or no toxicity allays
 earlier concern that CD4 might disrupt the workings of the
 immune system, or provoke patients to make antibodies against
 the agent.
    CD4 is a protein normally found on the surface of certain
 cells of the human immune system known as T-helper cells.  In
 AIDS, that protei n becomes a target of the AIDS virus as it
 seeks to infect and destroy these cells.  Genentech and others
 have engineered a synthetic version of the CD4 protein on the
 theory that it could act as a decoy that draws the virus to
 it, preventing immune cells from being infected.
    Genentech so far has led a crowded field of contenders by
 being first to enter its CD4 in clinical trials last August.
 Other competitors include a growing number of academic
 laboratories and such companies as Biogen N. V. of Cambridge,
 Mass., SmithKline Beckman Corp. of Philadelphia and closely
 held Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Tarrytown, N. Y. 
    Separately, Mr. Swanson told shareholders that the company
 won't stint on its high research and marketing expenditures,
 despite the fact that its heart drug TPA "failed to meet
 expectations."  Nor will the company cut TPA's $2,200 a dose
 price tag -- about ten times that of its competitor
 streptokinase.
    Mr. Swanson said TPA continues to command about two-thirds
 of the market for clot-dissolving drugs, though only
 one-third of eligible heart-attack patients currently receive
 TPA, streptokinase or any such therapy.
    G. Kirk Raab, president, said the company's marketing
 force now stands at 260 people, and will grow to 278 by June.
 Working jointly with a 470-person U. S. marketing team from
 Boehringer Ingelheim International G. m.b.H., Genentech will
 try to reach 95% of U. S. physicians to win them over to TPA,
 he said.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]