P&U Completes Trials With Tolterodine

Pharmacia & Upjohn has completed clinical trials with Detrusitol (tolterodine), its therapy for urge incontinence. It plans to file regulatory applications in the USA, Sweden and the UK for tolterodine tablets in the next two months.

In clinical trials involving more than 2,000 patients across Europe, North America and Australia, tolterodine was compared to oxybutynin, the conventional therapy. According to Goran Ando, executive vice president for worldwide science and technology, the company is confident that "based on the preliminary analysis completed so far...tolterodine will fill a significant market need." Analysts at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell raised the company's rating to "buy" from "accumulate" on the news.

New Wave Of Products Tolterodine is one of a new wave of products which have moved into the revamped P&U pipeline since the merger of the two companies in the second half of 1995, and which also includes the antidepressant reboxetine and the glaucoma agent Xalatan (latanoprost), first launched in the USA earlier this year (Marketletter September 30). These promising therapies are particularly welcome for the company which has seen bad times of late, following its general profits warning (Marketletters passim) and the split decision from the US Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on its AIDS drug Rescriptor (delavirdine) (Marketletter December 2).