Subject: Upjohn to Start Tests Of New AIDS Drug; Stock Soars by $1.875 
Date: Published: 7/23/92 (44 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Technology & Health:
    Upjohn to Start Tests
    Of New AIDS Drug;
    Stock Soars by $1.875

    KALAMAZOO, Mich.  -- Upjohn Co. said it will begin human tests in
 September on a drug that might work against mutated strains of HIV,
 the virus that causes AIDS.  
    The only drugs on the market that successfully retard HIV in the
 body are AZT, sold by Wellcome PLC's U. S. unit, and DDI, sold by
 Bristol-Myers Co. But the drugs' effectiveness is limited by side
 effects and other problems.
    Upjohn said its BHAP-E works in a way similar to AZT and DDI --
 by blocking the replication of the reverse transciptase enzyme,
 which is essential to the growth of HIV.  But Upjohn claims that its
 BHAP-E compound is "considerably more potent" in blocking the growth
 of the virus than any approved drugs on the market or experimental
 treatments under study.
    Laboratory studies on BHAP-E also "show a potential use against"
 HIV strains resistant to drug treatment, said Jerry R. Mitchell,
 Upjohn's corporate executive vice president and president of Upjohn
 Laboratories.
    The announcement sent Upjohn's stock soaring yesterday.  In late
 New York Stock Exchange trading, Upjohn shares jumped $1.875 to
 $34.25.
    Drug analysts caution that Upjohn is among a slew of companies
 working to develop an HIV treatment that would overcome drug
 resistence.  And several companies, including Merck Co. and
 Boehringer-Ingelheim International G. m.b.H. 's U. S. unit, have been
 frustrated in their efforts to find such a treatment.
    PaineWebber Inc. 's drug analyst Ronald Nordmann said investors
 may have been "reacting to a thread of hope for a company with a
 below-average research and development program."  Upjohn will lose
 patent protection on its three top-selling drugs by 1994.  So far,
 Upjohn has no major products coming out of the pipeline to replace
 those drugs.

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