BUSINESS WIRE - 44 Montgomery St, 39th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104; Tel: (415) 986-4422; FAX: (415) 788-5335 - Monday, 28 July 1997.
State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, the sole trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund which owns over 272,000 shares of Glaxo Wellcome Inc. with an estimated value of $12.5 million, has demanded faster and expanded release of a key new AIDS drug manufactured by Glaxo Wellcome, the multi-national drug conglomerate. Comptroller McCall, in a letter dated July 17 to Sir Richard Sykes, CEO of Glaxo Wellcome in London, is urging the drug company to expedite the availability of the new drug 1592 (also known as Abacavir) in the treatment of AIDS. 1592, developed by Glaxo Wellcome, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, holds promise as the only drug likely to become available soon for the thousands of people who have developed resistances to existing HIV drugs.
After a meeting arranged by Mothers' Voices, a national non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to the fight against AIDS, Comptroller McCall initiated the letter to Sir Sykes. "Increasing numbers of people with advanced AIDS have cycled through all the possible combinations of drugs and need new options," said Ann Kurth, executive director of Mothers' Voices. "Access to Glaxo Wellcome's drug could help save thousands of lives in the next few months," continued Kurth.
State Comptroller McCall has informed Sir Sykes that he will call upon other public pension funds to join his call for a hastened 1592 access program. He already has been joined by the New York State Teachers' Retirement System, which owns 799,494 shares of Glaxo Wellcome with an estimated value of $36.7 million, the City Councils of San Francisco and Pasadena, as well as by the 32 members of the Council of the City of New York, who, in a letter dated July 15 to Robert Ingram, the U.S. CEO of Glaxo Wellcome, called upon the drug company to "begin the process of seeking final approval from the FDA."
1592 has been in development for over nine years and promises to be more potent and less toxic than Glaxo's AZT, which has been in use since 1986. Mothers' Voices, along with more than 150 prominent AIDS organizations and individuals presented a consensus statement to Glaxo Wellcome in January calling for the immediate implementation of an expanded access program for 1592, and an accelerated timetable for seeking FDA approval and making the drug commercially available.
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