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Inhaled Drug Is Found of Benefit Against Pneumonia in AIDS Cases

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN, Special to the New York Times Published: June 15, 1988

STOCKHOLM, June 14— Early studies showing benefit from an inhaled drug to combat a form of pneumonia that often kills AIDS patients and discoveries of new genes in the AIDS virus were among the reports on the second day of the fourth international conference on AIDS here.

But a cautionary note ran through the meeting as its leaders repeatedly warned against the likelihood that any dramatic breakthrough would emerge from any of the more than 3,200 presentations. Scientists were kept to tight schedules in their presentations, and questions from the audience were limited or omitted when speakers went over their allotted time.

The reports mainly dealt with highly technical but important specific research findings on acquired immune deficiency syndrome rather than any sweeping advances toward a vaccine or cure.

In an area of great concern, leading researchers said they were less optimistic about the prospects of developing a vaccine than they were in Washington last year at the third international conference.

Unfortunately we cannot give you the headlines everyone wants about an AIDS vaccine coming tomorrow, said Dr. Friedrich Deinhardt of Munich, West Germany. New Data, New Questions

Dr. Erling Norrby of the Karolinska Institute here said researchers were more confused on a higher level because the data they accumulated over the last year raised many more questions than they answered in the search for a vaccine.

Yet a degree of optimism did come from researchers at the University of California at San Francisco who in a pilot study of aerosol pentamidine found that the drug helped prevent recurrence of Pneumocystis pneumonia, the leading immediate killer of AIDS patients. Aerosol pentamidine relies on nebulizers to deliver fine particles of the drug to the tiny air sacs in the lung.

This form of the therapy was developed for AIDS patients because many people did not tolerate the injections by which it has been customarily administered and because it offered the possibility of treatment at home. 1)

F.D.A. Allows Wider Use of Drug to Prevent Pneumonia in AIDS Patients

By WARREN E. LEARY, Special to the New York Times Published: February 07, 1989

The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it would allow wider availability of an experimental aerosol drug that helps prevent a life-threatening type of pneumonia that often strikes AIDS patients.

The agency said doctors could prescribe an inhaled form of the drug pentamidine by agreeing to participate in an expanded research program to gather data before final approval.

The F.D.A. said it was making the aerosol pentamidine available under a special program to give new drugs that show some promise against life-threatening illnesses wider use before formal approval. This is the third drug for AIDS-related conditions to receive this status since the program was established in 1987, the agency said. Rare Illness Except With AIDS

The decision to expand distribution of the drug, which previously was approved in injectable form to treat the pneumonia, Pneumocystis carinii, was reported in a number of publications last week. The pneumonia, which is rare in people without the AIDS virus, is caused by a different type of organism than other kinds of pneumonia. 2)

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The Food and Drug Administration announced today that it would allow wider availability of an experimental aerosol drug that helps prevent a life-threatening type of pneumonia that often strikes AIDS patients.

The agency said doctors could prescribe an inhaled form of the drug pentamidine by agreeing to participate in an expanded research program to gather data before final approval.

The F.D.A. said it was making the aerosol pentamidine available under a special program to give new drugs that show some promise against life-threatening illnesses wider use before formal approval. This is the third drug for AIDS-related conditions to receive this status since the program was established in 1987, the agency said. Rare Illness Except With AIDS. (https://web.archive.org/web/20220922031612/https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/07/us/fda-allows-wider-use-of-drug-to-prevent-pneumonia-in-aids-patients.html?pagewanted=2&src=pm))

Fujisawa to Buy Lyphomed, ACritical-Care Drug Maker

AP - Published: September 2, 1989

CHICAGO, Sept. 1— Lyphomed Inc. said today that it had agreed to be bought by the Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Company, a Japanese concern that already owns 30 percent of Lyphomed, for about $670 million.

Lyphomed, a drug maker based in Rosemont, Ill., had robust growth in the mid-1980's, largely through sales of pentamidine, a drug used to treat AIDS-related pneumonia. Overall sales soared from $4 million in 1981 to $172 million in 1987.

Lyphomed's primary product is injectable pharmaceutical devices used by critically ill people.

The company suffered difficulties last year after the Food and Drug Administration cited quality-control problems at several of its plants. The company lost $21.1 million in 1988. 3)

FIGHTING AIDS ALL THE WAY

By Larry Josephs; Larry Josephs is director of public affairs for the New York State Urban Development Corporation Published: October 08, 1989

AS A HEART MONITOR BEEPED AT MY side and an automatic blood-pressure machine quietly inflated and deflated, the nurse started the infusion. Doctors and more nurses hovered nearby. The drug dripping into my vein was dideoxyinosine, or DDI. Thus, on July 22 of this year, I became one of about 100 people in the United States to receive what was being described in the press as a promising new AIDS drug. But at that moment I knew the doctors and nurses at the National Institutes of Health were thinking not about how promising the drug was, but about seizures. Several people who had received intravenous infusions of the drug had experienced them, and, while the doctors felt it was unlikely the seizures had been caused by the drug, they were still nervous - and prepared.

A young nurse was instructed not to leave my side while the infusion progressed. It was her first day on the job, and I wondered if I were to begin convulsing whether she would actually know what to do. As I lay there we chatted, and I asked her why she was at the N.I.H., as opposed to a private hospital. Had she wanted to work with AIDS patients? I was surprised by her answer. A member of my family is HIV positive, she said. My uncle. I could not help thinking that this is part of the story of AIDS in this country - the evolutionary process by which more and more Americans become acquainted, firsthand, with the most insidious epidemic of our time. 4)

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