WARNER-LAMBERT CHOLECYSTOKININS COMPOUND WILL ENTER CLINICALS "WITHIN SIX MONTHS"

WARNER-LAMBERT CHOLECYSTOKININS COMPOUND WILL ENTER CLINICALS "WITHIN SIX MONTHS," Chairman and CEO Joseph Williams told analysts at an Aug. 1 meeting in Boston. Williams said the company initially looked into an obesity indication and is now also studying CCK's potential to treat anxiety and gastric secretion problems. Williams also announced that an NDA for a once-daily dosage form of the lipid regulator Lopid would be filed in early 1991. Warner-Lambert plans to have the sustained-release dosage form available for about a year before the Lopid patent expires in 1993. Williams said the company is standing by an earlier prediction that global sales of Lopid would reach $350 mil. this year. In support of Lopid, Warner-Lambert has increased promotional support 35% this year, emphasizing the product's "critical role in elevating HDL, the so-called 'good' cholesterol." Bolstered by the addition of 400 new sales reps, Parke-Davis now has a 1,350-member sales force. In the last six months, Parke-Davis has doubled the number of sales presentations made to cardiologists, according to Williams. Warner-Lambert hopes to receive an approval for its ACE inhibitor Accupril, which would give the company a stake in the antihypertensive market, expected to reach $5 bil. in the next few years. The product is currently marketed in Italy and France. Warner-Lambert's research budget this year is $360 mil., 80% of which is directed toward pharmaceuticals. Warner-Lambert expects to invest a total of $2 bil. over five years to fortify its research department. The company plans to raise more than$100 mil. to help pay for expanded facilities and a prescription drug research staff that will increase to nearly 2,600 over the next few years. The company also announced a change in the tradename of the company's quinolone antibacterial Comprecin (enoxacin) to Penetrex. An NDA for the oral product is pending at FDA. Warner-Lambert also said it attained record levels in second quarter sales of $1.2 bil. and net earnings of $134 mil.