Drug companies race to put nicotine-free stop-smoking pills on the market

• Pharmaceutical companies and researchers are hoping that new medications can do for smoking cessation what Viagra has done for erectile disfunction -- provide a viable treatment and make lots of money.
• The Associated Press reported March 6 that researchers are eager to bring a nicotine-free smoking-cessation drug to market.
• "It's the biggest addiction market there is," said Dr. Herbert D. Kleber, an addiction researcher at Columbia University.
• "Is it realistic to be able to help addicts stop smoking and remain off with a pill?
• I think the answer is yes and we're working on a number of them."
• Phizer researchers, for example, have designed and are testing a drug called varenicline, which binds to nicotine receptors in the brain and blocks craving.
• The drug is just one step away from being submitted to the FDA for approval.
• "It's an unmet medical need," said Dr. Karen Reeves, director of clinical development for Pfizer.
• "The morbidity and mortality rate is so high, and doctors and smokers really have not had enough in their armamentarium to help smokers stop smoking."
• Rimonabant, another antismoking drug that works on the reward system in the brain, is being marketed as Acomplia by the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo, which intended to seek FDA approval this year.
• NicVax, from Nabi Pharmaceuticals, is billed as an antismoking vaccine because it binds with and disables nicotine molecules in the body.
• Ta-Nic, a similar drug from Xenova Group in England, is also under development.
• The FDA approved buproprion, or Zyban, as an antismoking drug in 1997.
• The drug seems to help some, but not all, smokers, and has not been a big seller.
• "Everyone has been looking for the magic bullet," said Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society.