New approach to smoking cessation in the pipeline

Published: 1-May-2005


Pfizer researchers in Connecticut claim to have developed a new smoking cessation drug that suppresses the desire to smoke rather than weaning a person off the habit by feeding them nicotine. Its scientists discovered a brain receptor to which nicotine binds, and designed a drug - Varenicline - that clings to these neural cells, thereby cancelling and preventing nicotine cravings.

It is currently in Phase III testing in the US, normally the last stage before gaining FDA approval. The last drug claiming to have antismoking properties was Zyban; it was approved in 1997 as an antidepressant, but failed to become a success.

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