Nymox's NicAlert™: A Valuable Tool for Smoking Cessation Programs
MAYWOOD, N.J (March 20, 2003) Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation's NicAlert™ provides a valuable and needed tool for researchers and counselors working to develop more effective smoking cessation programs.
Quitting smoking is notoriously difficult: an estimated 70% of smokers would like to quit but only 2.5% will succeed each year.
NicAlert™ received clearance from the U.S. FDA in October 2002.
Norman Hymowitz Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, uses NicAlert™ in various research projects focusing on smoking cessation. The Pediatric Tobacco Project (PTP) uses the test strips as one way of objectively measuring levels of nicotine in infants, adults and adolescents. Pediatric residents and PTP research assistants use the strips to assess the smoking status of adults and infant exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. NicAlert™ is also being used in a high school cessation research study, to assess students at baseline, week seven, and at three follow-up sessions.
Sister Janet Christenson, Founder and Executive Director of Epiphany House, a New Jersey extended treatment and transitional housing provider for women and children, said "NicAlert™ has eliminated the guess work. We are thrilled that it has increased compliance. I often recommend NicAlert™ and will continue to do so."
NicAlert™ is a powerful one-step patented urine test for detecting smoking and tobacco product exposure that combines the advantages of semi-quantitative measurement together with an easy-to-use, cost effective, rapid format. NicAlert™ does not require any instruments or special training for its use.
Michael Munzar, Medical Director of Nymox, said, "These are just some of the examples of the positive feedback we have been receiving from researchers, doctors and counselors in the clinic and in the field. NicAlert™ meets a wide variety of needs, from doctors concerned about the smoking status of their patients to researchers looking at the effects of second-hand smoke to counselors needing a convenient, inexpensive method of validating smoking cessation."
Two recent independent peer-reviewed studies found the technology employed in NicAlert™ to be an accurate, rapid and cost-effective means of confirming smoking status. One study, "Validating a Dipstick Method for Detecting Recent Smoking," Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (2002; 11: 1123-1125) was authored by Peter Gariti of the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center Group, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, David I. Rosenthal of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Kathleen Lindell of the University of Pittsburgh and John Hansen-Flaschen, Joseph Shrager, Craig Lipkin, Arthur I. Alterman and Lawrence R. Kaiser of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study examined the smoking status of patients at a cancer clinic and found that the results obtained using Nymox's tobacco product exposure test had an "excellent agreement" with state-of-the-art sophisticated laboratory measurements but at a substantially lower cost (over 90% less). The second study, "The Accuracy of Self-Reported Smoking Status Assessed by Cotinine Test Strips," Nicotine & Tobacco Research (2002; 4: 305-9) was authored by Donna R. Parker, ScD, and Thomas M Lasater, PhD, Brown University School of Medicine; Richard Windsor, PhD, MPH, George Washington University Medical Center; Jeff Wilkins, MD, Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, David Upegui, BA, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island; and James Heimdal, PhD, The Hoffman Heart Institute, Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, Hartford, CT. The study found Nymox's product to be "an inexpensive and rapid method to routinely biochemically confirm smoking status at a clinical visit." The authors described the Nymox product as a "simple, inexpensive and rapid measure to immediately confirm smoking status in field settings."
NicAlert™ was used in a nationwide stop-smoking campaign jointly run by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, the Swiss Association for Smoking Prevention, the Swiss League Against Cancer and the Swiss Lung Association. The test is currently being used in large studies at the Lung-Center Hirslanden in Zurich, Switzerland, and in many large U.S. centers. NicAlert™ was also recently successfully used in Switzerland in high school students in an awareness campaign in Basel.
The U.S. Surgeon General, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO) and many other public health organizations have targeted tobacco use as the single most preventable cause of premature death today. The CDC estimates that smoking causes over 440,000 premature deaths annually in the United States and creates an economic loss of over $150 billion a year.
More information about Nymox is available at www.nymox.com, email: info@nymox.com, or 800-936-9669.
This press release contains certain "forward-looking statements" as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and the actual results and future events could differ materially from management's current expectations. Such factors are detailed from time to time in Nymox's filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities.
