By Frances Bishopp

ImmuLogic Pharmaceutical Corp., whose stock has plunged from approximately $19 in February 1996 to close last week at $3.188, has added more bad news to a long list of woes with the report that its clinical trial of Allervax Ragweed, scheduled for July 1997, has been delayed until next summer.

The trial, which must be run during the ragweed season, was held up due to a request from the FDA for additional information to better access the safety profile of the product from the last clinical trial, Susan Primrose, director of investor relations at ImmuLogic, told BioWorld Today.

"The FDA request for additional information will take us several months to compile, which puts us into August. We have to start the trial by mid-July or we will miss the ragweed season," she explained.

In January 1997, ImmuLogic reported results from a pivotal Phase III Allervax Ragweed trial that demonstrated statistically significant benefit at one dose level, but failed to repeat the statistically significant benefit observed in an earlier Phase II/III trial using another dose regimen.

The data were insufficient for a product license application (PLA) filing and ImmuLogic made plans to conduct another Phase III pivotal trial in the 1997 season.

"We are basically in Phase II/III development of the Allervax Ragweed product," Primrose said. "It is probably better to consider it Phase II at this point."

With the delay of the Allervax Ragweed trial, ImmuLogic, Primrose said, will move its Allervax Cat Phase II dose-ranging study to the front burner and get it started as soon as possible.

Just two weeks ago, the Waltham, Mass., company reduced its work force by 28 percent, or 39 employees, leaving ImmuLogic with 94 full-time employees. The restructuring, which was designed to save the company approximately $2.6 million a year, was done to narrow ImmuLogic's focus specifically to the Allervax Ragweed and Allervax Cat programs.

In March 1996, worried investors sent ImmuLogic stock down 22 percent after Hoechst Marion Roussel, of Frankfurt, Germany, ended its collaboration on both of ImmuLogic's allergy drugs: Allervax Cat and Allervax Ragweed.

Hoechst's decision to end the Allervax collaboration, which was forged with Kansas City, Mo.-based Marion Merrell Dow Inc. in 1992 prior to its takeover by the German drug maker, shoved ImmuLogic down $3.75, from $17 to $13.25.

In December 1996, ImmuLogic's stock plummeted once again, from $9.50 to $7.875, on news that both its president and CEO and chief financial officer had left the company.

In March 1997, in an effort to reverse the company's fortunes and regain credibility on Wall Street, ImmuLogic restructured its board of directors.

ImmuLogic halted trading for 45 minutes Thursday at the request of NASDAQ because, Primrose said, the news of the delayed trial was announced at 4:10 p.m. and NASDAQ wanted to halt any trading that would occur following the close of the market.

The company's stock (NASDAQ:IMUL) ended Friday down $0.562.

"Our stock is down," Primrose said, "mainly because our timeline has been delayed. We now will not have results of the next trial until the end of 1998, instead of the end of 1997."

The delays, in addition to the board changes and management changes, have brought quite a bit of uncertainty," Primrose added.

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. *