Ribavirin Drug

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s ribavirin drug, used in combination with a Schering-Plough Corp. drug to treat hepatitis C, may face generic competition within a year if an unidentified company wins Food and Drug Administration approval for its version. The FDA's Web site said the agency has received a request from a company to sell a generic version of ribavirin, which is sold by Schering-Plough with its own hepatitis C drugs Intron A and Peg-Intron.

A federal judge Wednesday dealt a potentially severe blow to Costa Mesa-based Ribapharm Inc. and its majority owner, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., ruling that a new generic formulation of Ribapharm's top-selling hepatitis C drug would not infringe patents owned by ICN. The case involves a copycat version of the drug, ribavirin, planned by three companies: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

After a five-year investigation, a federal grand jury has decided against indicting the chairman and other executives of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. over claims they misled investors about prospects for its prize drug, the company said Monday.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares soared Tuesday on news that one of the company's experimental drugs is being used to treat severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, the mysterious respiratory illness from Asia. ICN of Costa Mesa rose $1.59 to $10.50, a gain of 18% on the New York Stock Exchange. Despite the jump, ICN trades at one-third the price of its 52-week high of $31.73 last April. The firm said it was supplying an intravenous form of its antiviral drug ribavirin as a treatment for SARS.

ICN Pharmaceuticals, the embattled Costa Mesa drug maker, filed an $800-million suit Thursday against a New York securities firm for allegedly campaigning to drive down the company's stock price by circulating "false, slanderous and malicious" information about ICN's anti-viral compound, ribavirin. The complaint, filed in U.S.

The Food and Drug Administration has given ICN Pharmaceuticals of Costa Mesa permission to begin new clinical trials of ribavirin, a drug that the company hopes will be effective in combatting early-stage AIDS. In doing so, FDA spokesman Brad Stone said, the agency has lifted "a de facto clinical hold" on further human testing of ICN's proprietary drug ribavirin. The test ban was imposed because of previous FDA concerns about the drug's safety.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday sued ICN Pharmaceuticals and its Viratek Inc. subsidiary for alleged securities fraud, claiming that the firms knowingly misled the public about Viratek's ribavirin drug and its effectiveness in fighting the AIDS virus. Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, the companies immediately settled the suit by signing a consent decree in which they agreed not to violate securities laws in future.

A year after suffering a crushing loss in Eastern Europe, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Thursday reported a strong turnaround, and its controversial chairman vowed again to reclaim the company's plant seized by Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic. The multinational drug maker said it earned a record $118.6 million last year. It was a dramatic recovery from a $352.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s stock shot up Monday on news that tests showed its drug ribavirin may be effective in treating hepatitis when combined with a drug manufactured by giant Schering-Plough Corp. ICN stock climbed $6.06 a share to $49.88 in heavy trading on the New York Stock Exchange after hitting a 52-week high of $52.88 earlier in the session. Nearly 2.7 million shares changed hands, 10 times the stock's recent average daily volume.

For the second time in five months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has refused to authorize additional testing of ribavirin as a potential early stage AIDS treatment, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., the maker of the controversial drug, confirmed Thursday. An FDA spokesman said the Costa Mesa company, which has been trying since last year to win approval of the drug as an AIDS treatment, still had not demonstrated that ribavirin "meets the agency's safety and efficacy standards."

Ribapharm Inc. sued Hoffman-LaRoche Inc. in the Netherlands and countersued in Switzerland, raising the stakes in a patent dispute over the Costa Mesa company's flagship drug, ribavirin. In a press release Tuesday, Ribapharm said Hoffman-LaRoche plans to sell a rival version of ribavirin in the Netherlands as a treatment for hepatitis C and has launched a similar effort in Switzerland. Ribapharm, which was spun off from ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.

After battling a federal criminal probe for six years, ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Tuesday that it agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud for misleading investors about its biggest selling drug, ribavirin. The Costa Mesa drug maker agreed to a $5.

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s ribavirin drug, used in combination with a Schering-Plough Corp. drug to treat hepatitis C, may face generic competition within a year if an unidentified company wins Food and Drug Administration approval for its version. The FDA's Web site said the agency has received a request from a company to sell a generic version of ribavirin, which is sold by Schering-Plough with its own hepatitis C drugs Intron A and Peg-Intron.

ICN Pharmaceutical Inc.'s prize drug ribavirin works better with a new Roche Holding product in treating hepatitis C than it does with its current drug combination to treat the liver disease, according to a university research report released Tuesday. Patients responded to the once-a-week combination of Roche's Pegasys and ribavirin 56% of the time, compared with a response rate of 45% for Rebetron, a Schering-Plough Inc.

ICN Pharmaceutical Inc.'s prize drug ribavirin works better with a new Roche Holding product in treating hepatitis C than it does with its current drug combination to treat the liver disease, according to a university research report released Tuesday. Patients responded to the once-a-week combination of Roche's Pegasys and ribavirin 56% of the time, compared with a response rate of 45% for Rebetron, a Schering-Plough Inc.

After a five-year investigation, a federal grand jury has decided against indicting the chairman and other executives of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. over claims they misled investors about prospects for its prize drug, the company said Monday.

Just days before the sixth international conference on AIDS opened in San Francisco last month, something peculiar was going on at ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. The company's stock started a mysterious trek upward in unusually heavy trading on the New York Stock Exchange, climbing 86% in just 12 days.

Milan Panic was upset. He was reading stories last winter about an outbreak in Southern California of RSV, a respiratory ailment that afflicts children, and never saw a word about the only drug that treats serious RSV cases--the drug his company makes. A born salesman and autocratic leader, Panic ordered his staff at ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. to put together a full-page advertisement for him to edit and approve.

Schering-Plough Corp. and Enzon Inc. have won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to sell Peg-Intron, a hepatitis C drug that analysts say could have more than $2 billion in annual sales. The injectable drug is a once-weekly version of Schering-Plough's Intron A, the world's top-selling hepatitis medication, and is considered by analysts to be key to increased sales for Schering-Plough over the next five years.

Swiss drug company Roche Holding AG agreed to swap a stake in ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. for 8.7% of an ICN unit with rights to a top-selling hepatitis C drug, ICN said Thursday. The transaction gives Roche a stake in the division known as Ribapharm, which controls the drug ribavirin and an early version of its potential successor. Roche has an option to raise its Ribapharm stake to 17.5% by buying more ICN shares and then converting them, ICN said.