Information on two upcoming Bapineuzumab Phase 3 Clinical Trials is now published. Recruitment has not begun.
Link: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=aab-001


Contact: Study Coordinator 1-888-MEMORY

Ger:

This no. is not correct. Memory has 6 didgits not 7. The correct no is 1-877-687-8839.

ELND005 is also recruiting here is the link:

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00568776?term=alzheimer%27s

Interesting article from The Street.Com regarding secretcy at Elan's Annual Meeting:


1.) Elan did not permit a couple stock analyst's in their annual meeting claiming that the room was full even though the room was half empty. Analyst does not have a buy rating on Elan stock.

2.) Elan requested an invitation to a private stock analyst consulting conference with an AD expert, which is only open to the firms clients.

3.) The Elan annual meeting did not have any Question Answer session, which is normal for annual meetings.

4.) Related note, Bob Ruffolo,head of Drug Research at Wyeth, announced his retirement, April 30. He is only 58 years old. Bob was the top R&D guy, responsible for Bapineuzumab.

Here is the entire article:



The Street.Com Feuerstein's Biotech-Stock Mailbag


Before I get to your email, an Elan (ELN - Cramer's Take - #HYPERLINK "http://www.stockpickr.com/thestreet-symbol/ELN/"Stockpickr) update: I didn't attend Elan's investor meeting Wednesday in Boston. I wanted to go, but I was denied an invitation. Elan told me the room was too small to accommodate everyone who wanted to be there.

Funny, but several people in attendance at the event told me afterward that the room was half full. There were plenty of seats available.

One New York hedge fund analyst who also requested an invite in advance but was turned down nevertheless showed up at the conference center hoping Elan would let him sit in on the meeting. No way, the Elan officials told him, asking him to leave.

Having nowhere else to go, the analyst decided to sit in the lobby of the conference center building and listen to the Webcast of the Elan meeting on his laptop. After a few minutes, a police car pulled up and a Boston cop approached, telling him he needed to leave the building immediately. (There's a great picture of the cop confronting the analyst, snapped by another Elan meeting attendee, that has made the rounds of Wall Street.)
Caroline Stewart is an analyst for Piper Jaffrey. She has a neutral rating on Elan, in part because she says she's not sure that bapineuzumab, Elan's experimental Alzheimer's drug, is going to actually work. She, too, ran into trouble snagging an Elan invite.

A month or so ago, Stewart was planning to conduct a consulting call with an Alzheimer's expert for her clients, in part to discuss bapineuzumab. Elan wanted to listen to the call live, but Stewart explained that it was a call for Piper Jaffrey clients only. The company, however, was free to listen to the replay.


Stewart says that Elan insisted on listening to her consulting call live, and if not, she wouldn't be allowed to attend the company's analyst meeting. Stewart explained again that Piper rules forbade Elan from listening to her consulting call live. She also got angry, and asked Elan whether it was legal for the company to exclude her from attending a meeting where other analysts were invited.
Elan backed down and allowed Stewart to attend.
"The whole experience makes you wonder what they're trying to hide," she says, adding that she suspects her neutral rating on the stock had something to do with Elan's attitude. "They do some good science at Elan, but their behavior is bad."
More Elan meeting weirdness: No question-and-answer session? That's right, Elan didn't take any questions from the attendees after they wrapped up the presentations.
"The meeting was a total waste of time," says Stewart. "Why did Elan hold an investor and analyst meeting but then not allow any of us to ask questions?"
I've asked Elan to comment on why it seems like only "friends" were invited to its investor meeting. I haven't heard back. If and when I do, I'll let you know.
On a related note: Bob Ruffolo, head of drug research at Wyeth (WYE - Cramer's Take - #HYPERLINK "http://www.stockpickr.com/thestreet-symbol/WYE/"Stockpickr), announced his retirement April 30. He is 58 and was at Wyeth for about eight years.
As the top R&D guy at Wyeth, Ruffolo, naturally, was responsible for Wyeth's work on bapineuzumab, which is being conducted jointly with Elan.

Why would Ruffolo retire now, with key bapineuzumab data from the phase II study coming out in a couple of months, or even sooner? (He also sold a lot of Wyeth stock immediately after Wyeth and Elan announced in May 2007 that bapineuzumab was moving into phase III studies.) The timing of his retirement sure seems strange.
Now, before I get to your mail, a housekeeping item: I'm going on vacation, so the Biotech Mailbag will go on hiatus for the next two weeks. I'll miss you all. Well, maybe not so much since I'll be in Italy. But I will return in time, rested and ready, for the big ASCO cancer meeting. And eager to write more Mailbags, of course.
Hey, any recent travelers to Rome and Tuscany out there? If you are, and have some tips on things not to miss (great food, wine and gelato, especially), send me an email, please.
Speaking of ASCO, if you missed it earlier this week, check out my research abstract planner, Asco Abstract Preview. This should help prepare you for Thursday, when ASCO releases abstracts online. My colleague at TheStreet.com, Elizabeth Trotta, will be working to bring you all the news. I'll try to comment as well, probably while sitting in a Roman café sipping espresso. (Does it sound like I'm looking forward to this vacation?)
Onward to your email.


Ira

Enbrel for AD Patient Spreadsheet:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pXy1TUb9QGEh5I0Jh6Qk7HQ

Hi Ira,

Very interesting article. It took me a few tries to find it so I hope you don't mind me putting up the link:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10416074/1/feuersteins-biotech-stock-mailbag.html

Also, thank you for putting up the link on the enbrel spreadsheets. I have a feeling the new drug isn't getting these kind of results and maybe that's why they don't want us to spread the news about Enbrel. But, if BAP and Enbrel could work well together, that would be terrific!

So far, no bad side effects or problems reported with everyone I've ever communicated with who is receiving the Enbrel Treatments.

We had a nice Mother's Day here, a bit much for Mom, but she did fine. She smiled, ate, and talked with the family...and enjoyed watching her two great-grandson's run around the house.

Thanks, Felicia

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but isn't this topic about Bapineuzumab trials? Not ELND005 or alleged secrecy at Elan's Annual Meeting or Enbrel spreadsheets?

Could we PLEASE stay ON TOPIC?

I had no trouble locating the trials and the email contacts for the ones not yet recruiting...

According to Elan's Webpage, they are running the BAP trials along with Wyeth, so I think it's very relative to the topic to know that they are being secretive about it. It doesn't necessarily mean that anything is wrong with the trial, it's just information so that caregivers can make informed decisions about the trial and the companies running them.

I have NO IDEA what the corporate inside information means or has to do with the trials and I would be willing to bet that folks do not find that length and level of corporate chatter at all helpful in making their decisions!! TOO MUCH INFORMATION is merely a tool that some folks use to confuse and misdirect others away from a thread.

Once again, why don't we TRY to stay ON TOPIC which was:
informing people that some Phase 3 BAP trials are planned but not yet recruiting? Is that too much to ask?

Moms_Buddy The sites for the Bapineuzumab Phase III Trials are recruiting. clinicaltrials.gov
when page opens, type bapineuzumab in the search space top right of screen. Up will come various Bapineuzumab trials and within them, you will be able to click open the various locations recruiting across the United States

Thanks for the update, Ger.

I wish the name was a little shorter for that drug... I can never remember it and call it Beelzebub in my head... ;P This is gonna be a copy/paste job for sure!!

Per Reuters :Elan suspended this study in April due to a patient being hospitalized with skin lesions that a lead researcher suspected was a case of vasculitis, an inflammation of blood vessels.


http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN1112586220080611

Elan says trial of Alzheimer's vaccine restarted
Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:07pm EDT
By Ransdell Pierson

NEW YORK, June 11 (Reuters) - Elan Corp's (ELN.I: Quote, Profile, Research)(ELN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) mid-stage trial of a vaccine to treat Alzheimer's disease has resumed following a six-week suspension prompted by safety concerns, Chief Executive Kelly Martin said on Wednesday.

"Last week dosing was restarted," Martin told analysts and money managers at the Goldman Sachs annual Global Healthcare Conference in Dana Point, California. He said the study, which had been suspended in mid-April, was "back on track."

The vaccine, called ACC-001, stimulates the immune system to block production of A-beta peptide, a component of the amyloid-protein plaque which forms tangles in the brain that are the chief suspected cause of Alzheimer's.

The suspension allowed Elan and partner Wyeth (WYE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to examine a potentially serious side effect suffered by one patient in the mid-stage trial. The patient was hospitalized with skin lesions that a lead researcher suspected was a case of vasculitis, an inflammation of blood vessels.

Later on Wednesday, Elan spokesman Andrew Lewis said the trial was resumed after diagnostic tests failed to confirm vasculitis.

Elan and Wyeth are also co-developing another Alzheimer's drug, an antibody called bapineuzumab (AAB-001) that is farther along in testing and widely considered the most promising product in development against the degenerative brain disease.

Bapineuzumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody which directly attacks A-beta-peptide, has potential to become one of the world's biggest selling drugs if it slows down progression of Alzheimer's and is approved by regulators, according to many industry analysts

Ira
vend95@yahoo.com

Ira, this clipping does NOT pertain to the Bapineuzumab trials (mentioned as an aside in the last two paragraphs) AND, if you read the article, states that the VACCINE trials which were suspended, have now been resumed.

Again, could we PLEASE stay ON TOPIC?!!

Some data emerged this week which seems to show positive test results for a special subgroup in the Phase II study -- the subgroup being those who do not carry the ApoE4 gene.

I just read this thread (which thankfully is not that long) and noticed conversations pertaining to public practices of Elan. There's a very interesting article -- written in lay terms -- about Elan's release of BAP data at:

http://www.thestreet.com/s/biotech-review-elans-alzheimers-drug/newsanalysis/biotech/10421811.html?puc=googlen&cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

The inference is that the data might be skewed to force a positive spin on the results for public consumption. More information will be made at the ICAD conference at the end of July.

I find this discussion of Elans behavior to be very on topic.

It is very similar to behavior seen last year when the previous supposed wonder drug, Alzhemed, failed tests and the company attempted to find a way to spin the results.

Thanks everyone for the information from a variety of sources.