CIGARETTE BREAK

Amy Sung

New scientific approaches to smoking cessation may not only extinguish additional tobacco sales from supermarket courtesy counters, but may also cut into sales of all the nicotine patches, gums and lozenges currently offered in the pharmacy.

Several initiatives are nearing reality. Pfizer's Varenicline is a pill designed to deactivate the nicotinic receptor in the patient's brain to reduce both the severity of cravings and nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Kate Robins, director of media relations of Pfizer Research and Development, said data derived from Phase III testing -- the last stage before applying for Food and Drug Administration approval -- has been very encouraging. Nearly half of subjects using Varenicline in human trials have quit, she said.

Another medication, NicVAX, developed by Florida-based Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, could potentially be used as a nicotine vaccine. NicVax, short for Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine, is designed to cause the immune system to produce antibodies that bind with nicotine molecules and prevent them from entering the brain, where they trigger a dopa-mine response -- the basis of the addiction.

The drug would in all likelihood be administered by a physician as a series of injections. The company hopes to move from Phase II testing to Phase III testing by the end of this year.

"If you look at the problem, there's something like 50 million smokers in the United States today. Worldwide, there's like 2 billion. The vast majority of these people want to quit, they try to quit, but the problem is they get into social situations where they all of a sudden want to pick up that cigarette. So you basically have an unsatisfied market right now," said Mark Soufleris, Nabi's vice president of investor and public relations. "Basically, what we do know is that what's out there today is not really having a long-lasting effect on smoking cessation."

If approved, the prescription-only treatments would join Zyban, an anti-depression medication that has also been found to reduce nicotine cravings.