Herpes drug clinical trial halted

Eli Lilly and 3M have stopped a clinical trial of their jointly developed genital herpes treatment Resiquimod because preliminary data showed that the drug was not effective, The Wall Street Journal reports. Earlier Phase II trials showed that the drug was safe and well-tolerated, but preliminary data from a Phase III human trial showed that the compound was not as effective as expected in prompting the immune system into attacking herpes virus in the body, in preventing herpes outbreaks, or in helping to prevent people carrying the virus from infecting others. The companies plan to further analyze the trial data to determine whether to conduct further studies of the compound.