Harvard Medical Researchers Seek to Test AIDS drug

Researchers at three Harvard-affiliated hospitals have formed a consortium that hopes to increase the testing of various anti-AIDS drugs, such as newly invented Compound S.

Three doctors--Clyde Crumpacker of Beth Israel Hospital, Martin Hirsch of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Jerome E. Groopman of New England Deaconess--said last week they will apply to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to become one of five to 15 groups testing Compound S, a modification of a DNA component, thymidine.

Currently, there are only two ongoing trials of the compound. The tests, that began in July and will end in December, are taking place at the National Cancer Institute's hospital and at Duke University, where the drug was first tested on humans, said Kathy Bartlett, spokeswoman for the Burroughs-Welcome Company, the first manufacturer of Compound S.

Depending on the results attained in December, Burroughs-Welcome will decide if further research should be undertaken on the effect of the compound on humans.

Some doctors are uncertain that there will be any further testing. "It's all talk," said Dr. David Ho, a staff member of the infectuous disease unit at MGH and one of Hirsch's colleagues. "There has been no firm decision on the part of the doctors and NIH" to expand anti-AIDS drug testing.

"Even Dr. Hirsch doesn't know what will happen. He has just preliminarily talked to his colleagues about perhaps submitting a proposal," said Ho.