Drug Firm Stock Up on News of Possible Reconsideration of Its AIDS Medicine

Newport Pharmaceuticals International, which 2 months ago halted its research on a potential AIDS medication called Isoprinosine, said Friday that its decision could be reconsidered in light of a new study by an affiliate in Denmark.

The Newport Beach drug company warned, however, that the results of clinical trials in Scandinavia are “very preliminary” and have yet to be reviewed by the firm.

Despite those reservations, Newport stock soared 71% after the preliminary findings were disclosed late Thursday. The stock closed Friday at $3 a share, up $1.25, on heavy over-the-counter trading of 1.1 million shares.

Newport stock had fallen from $5.75 to $2.25 a share in November when the company announced that it would discontinue its research efforts in the wake of a disappointing clinical trial in the United States and Britain.

The more recent Scandinavian tests, conducted at 21 hospitals in Denmark and Sweden since late 1986, involved patients infected with HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Half of the 866 patients were treated with Isoprinosine and half were given placebos. The preliminary results, as reported by Newport’s licensee in Denmark, Leo Pharmaceutical Products, showed a “significantly smaller number of patients in the (Isoprinosine) group developed AIDS, as compared with the placebo group.”

“But this is only the initial result,” said Judith Woodward Archbold, Newport’s vice president and legal counsel. “We haven’t seen the data and cannot comment on whether it will warrant our filing for approval with the FDA.”

She said Newport’s research department remains closed but could be reopened if the review of the Scandinavian data is positive.

Newport has been trying for several years to gain Food and Drug Administration approval to market Isoprinosine in the United States. The drug--the company’s only proprietary product--is marketed in 70 foreign countries for treatment of several viral diseases, including herpes. It also has been approved for use as an AIDS medication in New Zealand and the Philippines.

But clinical trials in this country have not produced results that have satisfied the FDA, and the test results announced in mid-November seemed to end Newport’s domestic efforts.

The tests, conducted over a 6-month period in hospitals in the United States and the United Kingdom, failed to show any significant differences between patients with AIDS-related complex who were treated with Isoprinosine and those treated with a placebo.