ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991                   TAG: 9103230223
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

FDA ENCOURAGES TRIALS ON ALZHEIMER'S DRUG

The Food and Drug Administration Friday recommended that patients with Alzheimer's disease be given much wider access to the experimental drug tacrine, a potentially promising treatment that has been available only to a few hundred patients.

The FDA's recommendation does not constitute approval of the drug or an endorsement of its effectiveness. Just last week, in fact, an FDA advisory committee recommended against approving the drug for sale because it said the scientific data did not demonstrate it was effective in combating the disease.

Nor do FDA officials currently contemplate making the drug available to anyone who wants it.

Rather, based on recent preliminary suggestions that it may be possible to improve the drug's effectiveness, FDA officials said they now feel it would be worthwhile to open up trials to large numbers of patients under a program known as "expanded access." - Washington Post 


 by CNB