Newport Drug Firm Names Chief Executive

Nearly five months after Alvin Glasky, Newport Pharmaceuticals International Inc.’s controversial chairman and president, was removed from office, the Newport Beach drug company said Wednesday that a former Allergan Pharmaceuticals official has been named its new chief executive.

J. Roberts Fosberg, a one-time executive vice president of Allergan, a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based SmithKline Beckman Corp., assumed the post of president and chief executive of Newport on Wednesday, a company spokeswoman said. Fosberg, she added, will be nominated for a seat on Newport’s board of directors and a vote will be taken at the annual meeting of shareholders to be held in September.

Also on Wednesday, Newport disclosed that Sanford Glasky, Alvin Glasky’s brother, had resigned as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Although Glasky could not be reached for comment, the spokeswoman said “he felt it was in the best interests of the company to step aside so the new CEO can initiate his own plans.”

Alvin Glasky, whose battles with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration were legendary, was ousted by the company’s outside directors in March following the FDA’s pointed rejection of the drug Isoprinosine--Newport’s sole product--as a treatment for pre-AIDS, a series of conditions that precede the onset of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The FDA also criticized the company for allegedly misrepresenting the drug’s efficacy.

Over the last two decades, Isoprinosine has been promoted variously as a treatment for a multitude of diseases ranging from herpes simplex and genital warts to the common cold.

While it is available in more than 80 foreign countries for treating a variety of diseases, Isoprinosine has never been approved for use in the United States. The FDA rejection in late February of the drug as an AIDS therapy marked the third time it has been proscribed for domestic use.