Arris Plays Down Negative Asthma Trial

Arris Pharmaceutical has played down the significance of a negativeresult in a Phase IIa trial of its experimental asthma drug APC-366. The company's shares dropped $2, or 14%, to close at $12.44 on the day of the announcement (September 24), and the shares remained at around this level until the Marketletter went to press (October 2).

The data indicated that the tryptase inhibitor improved bronchial hyper-responsiveness compared to placebo in two thirds of patients, but this trend did not achieve statistical significance. Hyper-responsiveness was measured by the amount of inhaled histamine required to produce a drop of 20% or more in lung function.

Michael King of Vector Securities said that the results were a setback and not a devastating blow. This was the third Phase IIa conducted by Arris on APC-366. One other which has already been reported demonstrated that the drug could achieve a significant reduction in late airway response after allergen challenge compared to placebo (Marketletter July 7).