The Associated Press reported March 6 that researchers are eager to bring a nicotine-free smoking-cessation drug to market. "It's the biggest addiction market there is," said Dr. Herbert D. Kleber, an addiction researcher at Columbia University. "Is it realistic to be able to help addicts stop smoking and remain off with a pill? I think the answer is yes and we're working on a number of them."

Phizer researchers, for example, have designed and are testing a drug called varenicline, which binds to nicotine receptors in the brain and blocks craving. The drug is just one step away from being submitted to the FDA for approval. "It's an unmet medical need," said Dr. Karen Reeves, director of clinical development for Pfizer. "The morbidity and mortality rate is so high, and doctors and smokers really have not had enough in their armamentarium to help smokers stop smoking."

Rimonabant, another antismoking drug that works on the reward system in the brain, is being marketed as Acomplia by the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo, which intended to seek FDA approval this year. NicVax, from Nabi Pharmaceuticals, is billed as an antismoking vaccine because it binds with and disables nicotine molecules in the body. Ta-Nic, a similar drug from Xenova Group in England, is also under development.

The FDA approved buproprion, or Zyban, as an antismoking drug in 1997. The drug seems to help some, but not all, smokers, and has not been a big seller.

"Everyone has been looking for the magic bullet," said Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society.

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