I've read the Phase III study design and as I recall those assigned to the control group are *eventually* given the actual Collagenase after the study (darn nice of them)

It would be terrific if Dr. Rappoport actually gets funded by Auxilium. As usual jim has his doubts based on a long history of what would appear to be stalling. Rappoport would be the first person do have extensive experience with *both* NA and Collagenase. He'd certainly be a guy we'd want to interview! Unfortunately he'd probably be under contract with Auxilium not to say anything by way of comparison. The trial data would simply speak for itself.

Wolfgang, where did you hear about Dr. Rappoport's involvement?

To Randy: Dr. Rappoport indicated that in an e-mail and allowed us to make it public. He is still awaiting an approval from, I believe, a Swiss ethic commision and expects to start in October this year.

Wolfgang

As I see it the announcement really says they've decided one product in development isn't going to work out and they're dropping it. The rest of it is telling investors not to worry because they have another great product on the way - AA4500. There are apparently no AA4500 trials in progress, the next one is expected to begin "soon" so in that sense we're right where we've been for about 10 years now.

I'm no expert but my understanding is that Phase III trials involve much larger numbers of patients than the preceding phases - so Phase III is much more expensive and probably takes longer. If and when we see this trial actually underway, we'll have reason to believe that Auxilium is committed to a real product.