By Frances Bishopp

Staff Writer

With plans to focus financial resources on its lead products, Allervax Ragweed and Allervax Cat, which have experienced delays in the clinical process, ImmuLogic Pharmaceutical Corp. reduced its work force by 28 percent, or 39 employees, leaving the company with 94 full-time employees.

The restructuring, which was carried out in all departments, will cost the Waltham, Mass., company $650,000, Susan Primrose, director of investor relations at ImmuLogic, told BioWorld Today, and will result in a savings of approximately $2.6 million a year.

"The company has determined it will narrow its focus to specific programs in development, primarily both our Allervax Ragweed product for the treatment of ragweed allergies and Allervax Cat for the treatment of cat allergies," Primrose said. "And once those trials are advanced to their next clinical trial phase, we will then review our cocaine vaccine (a cocaine derivative bound to an immunogenic carrier) and our multiple sclerosis therapeutic (a peptide therapeutic), that are currently in preclinical trials."

Primrose said product delays primarily were the reason for the layoffs, rather than any changes or setbacks in the development process.

"Despite positive results, the last trials of both Allervax Cat and Allervax Ragweed have required additional study," she said.

In April 1996, ImmuLogic reported results from a Phase III trial of Allervax Cat that showed only one of four dosing regimens, 750 micrograms twice weekly for two weeks, produced a statistically significant benefit compared with placebo.

"What we saw in that trial was that a new dosing regimen, the same amount of drug delivered over a shorter time period, performed better," Primrose said. "Because of that information and information we received from the next Allervax Ragweed trial, we determined we needed to do additional dose-ranging work to look at the frequency issue and dose-amount issue."

ImmuLogic is currently talking to the FDA about the advancement of Allervax Ragweed, which is now in Phase II/III development, and will have further discussions with the FDA this summer on trials for Allervax Cat. The next trial for Allervax Cat, Primrose said, will be a Phase II, dose-ranging study.

ImmuLogic was originally in partnership for the Allervax program with Marion Merrell Dow Inc., of Kansas City, Mo., which was acquired in 1995 by Hoechst AG, of Frankfurt, Germany, the parent company of Hoechst Marion Roussel. Hoechst ended the collaboration in March 1996 and ImmuLogic regained all rights to the Allervax products.

The Allervax drugs use allergy-causing proteins to re-educate the immune system not to trigger a response to the specific invading allergen, such as pollen from ragweed or dander from cats.

Without a corporate partner to finance clinical trials and a longer timeline in the development process for both Allervax Cat and Allervax Ragweed, Primrose said, the cutbacks would avoid putting the company in a "financially compromised" situation.

ImmuLogic's stock (NASDAQ:IMUL) closed Wednesday at $3.906, down $0.094. The company reported a net loss for the first quarter of 1997 of approximately $6 million and, as of March 31, 1997, reported cash on hand of approximately $63 million. *