Antiviral

Epitope Inc. announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved its sale of 1.25 million shares of common stock at $5 each. Shares in the biotechnology company are being sold to a limited number of U.S. and European institutional and other qualified investors, officials said. Sutro & Co. of San Francisco is the underwriter for the stock offering. Net proceeds from the offering will be used in development of new diagnostic tests for AIDS, therapeutic drugs for malaria, antiviral barriers and novel plant varieties, as well as general corporate purposes, Epitope officials said.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. said third quarter net income jumped to $3.7 million, from a net loss of $749,000 in the comparable period a year earlier. Company officials attributed the gain to increased sales, particularly of Virazole, an antiviral drug the company makes. The Costa Mesa-based pharmaceutical maker said sales for the quarter totaled $21.6 million, a 44% gain from sales of $15 million for the same period a year ago. For the nine months, the company reported net income of $7.

An anti-viral drug has been shown for the first time to reduce fevers in AIDS patients, boost their immune systems and eliminate some infections, researchers said today.

The Food and Drug Administration Thursday gave doctors the go-ahead to treat infants suffering from a sometimes-fatal respiratory ailment with an anti-viral drug that has also shown promise in arresting the AIDS virus in its early stages. The action technically would enable physicians to prescribe the drug, ribavirin, for AIDS victims, hundreds of whom regularly travel for treatment to Mexico, where ribavirin has been in use for six years.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Costa Mesa announced Wednesday that it is planning to test its anti-viral drug Virazole on 350 pre-AIDS patients at eight medical centers throughout the United States, one of the largest research projects proposed on the deadly disease.

In the early 1970s, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. didn't know which way to turn first. On its laboratory shelves were the building blocks for 2,000 potential new drugs, just begging for arduous and costly development into effective, approved and--it hoped--lucrative medicines. But the young drug company could afford to pick only one. After two years of study, ICN finally bestowed that honor on ribavirin, a compound the company says kills certain viruses by jamming their reproductive systems.