Swimming against the tide

Pharmos Corp. believes it is prepared to enter Phase III development with its dexanabinol (HU-211) non-psychotropic marijuana analog to improve outcomes following severe head trauma. However, given past failures of others in the indication, PARS's Phase II data do not give an unequivocal indication of success in Phase III. And head trauma patients are a heterogeneous group, adding another layer of complexity to trials.

In PARS's Phase II trial, 10 percent (3 of 30) of treated patients died compared to 13.5 percent (5 of 37) of patients on placebo. While that represented a 26 percent reduction in mortality, the number of patients was too small to achieve significance...