Lugano, July 8^th, 2002. Helsinn Healthcare SA inform that during the last edition of the Congress of the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR, 12-15 June 2002, Stockholm, Sweden), a satellite symposium entitled "Pharmacological evidences supporting the clinical profile of oxaprozin" obtained a satisfactory success and interest among the medical community. The product, extensively marketed in the United States and in Canada, is now being marketed in Europe under Helsinn’s license, where it will meet the needs of patients suffering from strong pain associated to pathological conditions, often of rheumatological origin.

The objective of this symposium was to give a comprehensive picture of the peculiar characteristics of oxaprozin and explain how these features relate to the beneficial results obtained on great numbers of patients in therapy.

These important points were introduced by the two renowned chairmen, Prof. Arthur L. Weaver and Prof. Edward C. Huskisson, who competently and expertly conducted the symposium sharing their experience on the product with the attending medical community.

The first speaker, Prof. Franco Dallegri, of the Clinical Methodology Section, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Genova (Italy), explained how during RA and OA the dramatic changes in the cytokine profile contribute to joint swelling and pain, with direct impairment of patients’ quality of life. Oxaprozin, with its preferential accumulation in the joints and its ability to control the local production of cytokines gives rapid and sensible reduction of swelling and relief from pain.

Prof. Maurizio Bevilacqua of the Endocrinology Service Unit of the Hospital L. Sacco (Milan, Italy), presented new data demonstrating the inhibitory effect of oxaprozin on the NF-k B pathway. This molecule, in fact, probably due to its chemical similarity to the arachidonic acid molecule, showed to have an inhibitory effect on inducible or constitutive NF-k B translocation to the nucleus in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. NF-k B is a key transcription factor activated by different molecules during inflammation and whose inhibition could account both for control of the catabolic processes of inflammation and of the switch from an acute to a chronic inflammatory condition.

Oxaprozin profile was then enriched by the description of recent pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic findings by Prof. Kim Rainsford, Director of the Biomedical Research Centre of the Sheffield Hallam University (Sheffield, U.K.)

Oxaprozin is a valuable drug because has a long plasma half-life, allowing a once a day administration, a relatively non-complex metabolism, a dual elimination pathway which permits administration also to patients with moderate renal impairment, a modest anti-platelet effects which may be beneficial for control of thrombosis in the elderly. Moreover oxaprozin causes very few drug interactions which are anyway of no clinical relevance, being therefore a good candidate for polytherapy.