Subject: Upjphn to Develop Experimental Drug To Combat AIDS 
Date: Published: 5/26/89 (57 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology & Health:  
    Upjphn to Develop
    Experimental Drug
    To Combat AIDS
    ----   
    By Gregory Witcher
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    KALAMAZOO, Mich. -- Upjohn Co. is making a new entry into
 the crowded race to develop a weapon in the fight against
 acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
    Upjohn said it agreed in principle to develop an
 experimental compound called CD4-PE40, discovered by
 researchers at the National Institutes of Health.  However, it
 isn't clear when Upjohn's licensing agreement with NIH will
 be finalized or how soon the company will seek permission
 from the Food and Drug Administration to market the new drug.
    The licensing agreement gives Upjohn exclusive rights to
 market CD4-PE40 and could produce a significant marketing
 advantage if the drug proves to be effective against the
 disease.  Moreover, the agreement could offset declining sales
 from Upjohn's two biggest-selling drugs, Xanax tranquilizers
 and Halcion sleeping pills, as well as sluggish sales of
 Rogaine, the company's drug that grows hair.
    Upjohn's compound links a toxin to CD4, a protein that
 appears on the surface of certain cells of the human immune
 system called T-helper cells.  The protein is the "door" the
 AIDS virus uses to penetrate and infect these cells.  AIDS is
 a usually fatal disease that destroys the immune system.
    Upjohn will have to move fast to be first with a new CD4
 drug.  So far, Genentech Inc. has led the crowded pack of
 contenders by being first to enter its CD4 therapy in
 clinical trials last August.  More than half a dozen other
 companies and universities also are trying to develop such an
 agent, including Biogen Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., and
 SmithKline Beckman Corp. of Philadelphia.  Upjohn has also
 been developing its own CD4 therapy for about a year.
    CD4 alone hasn't yet proven to be effective against the
 disease.  What distinguishes Upjohn's CD4-PE40 is that it
 links CD4 with a toxin, pseudomonas exotoxin.
    The CD4 portion of the agent attaches itself to a viral
 substance called glycoprotein 120, which appears on the
 surface of cells that are reproducing the AIDS virus.  Then
 its poisonous component, pseudomonas, kills the infected cell
 without harming healthy cells.
    CD4-PE40 was discovered at two NIH units by researchers
 Ira Pastan of the National Cancer Institute and Bernard Moss
 of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

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