Ulcers

NEW YORK - Merck & Co. Inc., one of the world's largest drug makers, warned Wall Street yesterday that its profit would be lower than expected because a popular painkiller had stopped gaining market share. Merck's disclosure startled investors, and Merck's shares fell sharply, contributing to a decline in the Dow Jones industrial average. The shares sank $6.67 yesterday, or 9 percent, to close at $67.80. Merck said it now expected earnings for the second quarter, which ends June 30, of 77 cents to 79 cents a share, below analysts' consensus estimate of 81 cents.

ELMONT, N.Y. - The death-defying ordeal started with a routine abrasion. While romping with another colt in their Florida paddock in March last year, Invisible Ink cut his right hind ankle. A thousand other young horses could sustain the same minor injury, receive treatment and return to normal within a week. But for Invisible Ink, who races tomorrow in the Belmont Stakes, the seemingly harmless incident nearly cost him his life. The 2-year old apparently had a severe allergic reaction to his medicine and plunged into a pathetic state.

Q. I've been diagnosed with aphthous ulcers by two doctors, one dentist, a periodontist and an oral pathologist. They have all prescribed treatments, from a particular kind of toothpaste to prednisone to folic acid, but these approaches haven't helped. These sores broke out in my mouth just when I quit smoking five months ago. My mouth is so tender, I wonder if I should begin smoking again. All the doctors say my body is stressing out because of lack of nicotine. Can you suggest anything?

Human Genome Sciences Inc. saw its stock rise 11 percent yesterday after the biotechnology company announced that SmithKline Beecham Corp. had opted to jointly develop and commercialize the Rockville firm's most advanced drug. "We're looking forward to working with [SmithKline] on this drug," said Kate de Santis, Human Genome's director of corporate communications. The drug in question is called Repifermin, which has demonstrated positive indications during early Phase II clinical trials involving patients with venous ulcers, a type of lesion.

Encouraged by the results of clinical tests that were to be released today, Human Genome Sciences Inc. will expand human testing of a protein designed to promote wound-healing, marking an advance for one of the first drugs developed with a system that uses computers to find genes that give rise to therapeutic proteins. The system is known as genomics-based drug discovery, and Human Genome is betting that it will be superior to the less precise approach pharmaceutical companies traditionally have used to find drug candidates.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The University of Rochester had ambitions to be a national powerhouse in medical research. And it had charted a meticulous 10-year plan to get there: Get more research money from the National Institutes of Health, recruit 100 more biomedical scientists and construct two research buildings. Then came the jackpot. In April, the university announced that it had been awarded a broad patent covering the use of a new type of painkiller that could bring in billions of dollars in royalties.

Human Genome Sciences made double-barreled announcements yesterday about its protein wound-healer repifermin, saying the treatment showed promise and was "well-tolerated" in Phase II tests on skin-ulcer patients and - separately - that it had been approved for Phase II testing on patients with a painful gastrointestinal disease. Dr. David C. Stump, the company's senior vice president for drug development, called the two developments "great announcements for our product." But the company's shares dropped $9.25, or nearly 11.5 percent, to close at $71.25 on the Nasdaq stock market as the overall market fell.

Q.For several years, my husband and I have been taking enteric- coated aspirin. We understand that these dissolve in the intestines rather than the stomach, thus avoiding the danger of ulcers. Is this a misconception? Is there some other reason why enteric-coated aspirin is not more frequently recommended by professionals?A.Enteric coatings do keep aspirin from dissolving in the stomach. This reduces irritation caused by the aspirin tablet itself. But once aspirin is circulating in the bloodstream, it can have an indirect effect on the stomach.

MOSCOW -- President Boris N. Yeltsin, who had just begun showing faint signs of recovering from pneumonia and general poor health, was rushed to the hospital yesterday with yet another illness -- an acute bleeding stomach ulcer.Yeltsin's spokesman looked calm as he met with reporters and smiled genially as he tried to reassure a national television audience about the president's health."I spoke to him this afternoon," Dmitri Yakushkin, the spokesman, said. "The president was cheerful, his voice was cheerful, and he expects to overcome this illness and return to work as soon as possible."

ROCKVILLE -- In a tour de force of computer-aided biology, scientists have decoded the full genetic instructions of the bacterium that causes ulcers and other stomach disease and have figured out many of its strategies.The advance is likely to lend new impetus to research on the bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, which is a leading cause of human illness. The microbe is thought to live in almost half the world's people, though usually without causing disease. In the United States it is found in 30 percent of adults and more than half of the people over 65, with a prevalence in lower socioeconomic groups.