Thursday, March 11, 2010

Phase III Drug news - or rather non news

Nothing new on Cyclokat which is what we all want to know, since sadly it's the only thing anywhere near approval!

Phase II drug news: Alcon's 3 (?)

A year ago Alcon's Rx pipeline for dry eye was awfully bare.

Now, all of a sudden, they've got three things that appear to all be ready for Phase III. But wait... are there three, or are there two? And will the real Restasis competitor wannabe please stand up?

AL-43546: This is a hyaluronic acid drop. Better be awfully good if it's gonna beat the appeal of the OTC Oasis Tears Plus or else it better be approved in a different economy.

Zyclorin, recently acquired from Sirion, 0.1% cyclosporine.

AL-38583, which shows in clinicaltrials.gov as having completed Phase II just days ago. This is the former Alcon X, rumored by investors to be cyclosporine, and indeed was tested at 0.05% and 0.1%.

Why would they have two cyclosporine drugs? different vehicles? double whammy? or is Alcon X something else after all?

For a complete rundown of dry eye drug approval status, please see my clinical trials page here:

http://www.dryeyezone.com/news/clinicals.html