Wide Study, Use of the Drug Ribavirin

The article of May 22 entitled “Top 10 Executives’ Average Pay Spirals Into Millions” gives the impression that ICN’s drug ribavirin is of limited therapeutic value, when quite the opposite is true.

Ribavirin is one of the most widely studied drugs in the world. It has been the subject of over 600 scientific papers in the peer review literature. It is approved in 28 countries for a variety of viral infections, including influenza, hepatitis and herpes simplex virus. It has been used therapeutically without reported fatalities by some 5 million patients throughout the world over the past decade.

In the United States, ribavirin, under the trade name Virazole, is approved for marketing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of infants and young children with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a sometimes life-threatening infection of the lower respiratory tract. It is also approved for marketing for RSV in the United Kingdom, Canada, Spain and Australia. Since its introduction in the U.S. in early 1986 for this indication, ribavirin in aerosol form has been used by physicians to safely treat some 34,000 hospitalized infants and young children with RSV.

At the present time, ICN is conducting clinical trials with ribavirin in the U.S. for the indications of herpes zoster, hepatitis B and AIDS-related disorders.

ROBERTS A SMITH

Senior Vice President

ICN Pharmaceuticals

Costa Mesa