CHICAGO - While thousands enter the new year sneezing and coughing winter colds, a company pharmaceutical said it might have something to offer. A new antiviral drug shortens the course of colds by one day, according to results of a clinical trial large Phase III published here on December 17 at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
Americans spend $ 3.5 billion annually remedies against colds, which target only the symptoms. The new drug, pleconaril, attack instead of a group of viruses called rhinoviruses, which cause about half of all colds. Jointly developed by ViroPharma Inc. of Exton, Pennsylvania, and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, based in Strasbourg, France, PLECONARIL acts like a molecular glue, preventing rhinoviruses that erupted in the cells to release their genes to copy.
To test how cold the drug controls in adults, Frederick Hayden of the University of Virginia School of Medicine have coordinated a clinical trial of 2,096 adults across the United States and Canada who had moderate to severe runny nose and at least one other symptom, such as a sore throat, nasal congestion, cough, muscle aches, or general malaise. Patients were randomized to receive either the drug or a placebo and took the pills until their runny had relaxed for 2 days.
self rating patient revealed that it took 2.9 days until their symptoms were half as severe as on the first day, compared to 3.9 days for the placebo group . The second day of the cold, the rhinovirus can be cultured from nasal mucus samples in 85% of placebo patients, but only 60% of patients taking the drug. ViroPharma, which funded the study, is also the pleconaril trial on children with colds and try to determine whether the drug can completely prevent the common cold, said Mark McKinlay, vice president of research and society development.
Although drug shortens the disease in just a day or two, "you can not expect much more with a disease that is measured in days," says virologist Scott Hammer of Columbia University. If the Food and drug Administration approves peconaril, the drug could be on the market in autumn 02. - in time for the fight winter colds of next year
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