By Karen Pihl-Carey

Staff Writer

Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. acquired worldwide rights to Pharmacia & Upjohn's HIV-1 drug, Rescriptor, for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition will add to the La Jolla, Calif.-based company's emphasis on the HIV and AIDS market. Its HIV protease inhibitor, Viracept (nelfinavir mesylate), was approved in March 1997.

"We're committed to the whole HIV/AIDS field and we acquired Rescriptor not only to strengthen our commercial presence, but to forward the emerging data that support Rescriptor in combination with a protease inhibitor as a second-line therapy," said Agouron spokeswoman Joy Schmitt. "This is data that provides additional treatment options for people living with HIV/AIDS."

Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed, Schmitt told BioWorld Today.

Sales of Rescriptor (delavirdine) are expected to be about $9 million worldwide for 1999. The product is approved in North America, Australia and parts of South America, but not in Europe. The Rescriptor tablets are indicated for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in combination with antiretroviral agents. It has not demonstrated a clinical benefit based on survival or incidence of AIDS-defining clinical events, but it was approved in 1997 based on results of a three-drug combination trial. (See BioWorld Today, April 8, 1997, p. 1.)

Rescriptor has been shown to be well tolerated. About 18 percent of patients reported a skin rash that disappeared within three days to two weeks without reducing the drug's dose.

Giving Agouron the rights to Rescriptor "represents the best option for the future of the product and is in the best interests of patients," Goran Ando, executive vice president and president of research and development for Peapack, N.J.-based Pharmacia & Upjohn, said in a statement.

Agouron is a subsidiary of Warner-Lambert Co., of Morris Plains, N.J., and also is studying other anti-HIV therapies, such as NNRTI AG1549, the novel HIV protease inhibitor AG1776 and Remune, an immune-based therapy.