DRUG MAKER RETHINKS FORMULA

The maker of the widely abused narcotic painkiller OxyContin knew that
other companies had used a chemical safeguard to reduce misuse of their
products but decided not to take similar steps before marketing the drug,
company officials say.

Executives of the manufacturer, Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma, said
in statements over the weekend that they had not initially considered
adding a so-called narcotic antagonist to OxyContin because they did not
expect that abusers would crush the powerful drug and then inject or snort it.

Over the past two years, OxyContin has been cited as a factor in more than
100 overdose deaths nationwide, and people desperate for the drug have been
involved in pharmacy robberies and other crimes.

Last week, Purdue Pharma said that it was working to develop a painkiller
like OxyContin that would also contain a narcotic antagonist. Such
compounds do not affect a drug if it is taken normally. But if an abuser
crushes a drug tablet and injects or snorts the powder an antagonist will
block its opiate effect and reduce its appeal.

The company said it would probably take three to five years to develop and
test the new drug. Antagonists work by blocking receptors in the brain that
are also used by opiates.

But some drug-abuse experts were critical of Purdue, saying that the
company could have initiated such action earlier and that its timetable
would do little to immediately address OxyContin abuse.

Purdue officials said they had hoped to avert OxyContin misuse by
encapsulating its active narcotic, a compound called oxycodone, in a
time-released formula. But even before OxyContin was first sold in 1995,
some companies found that some of their products had become popular with
drug abusers, and a few manufacturers moved to reformulate those products
with antagonists.

But Terry Woodworth, the deputy director of the division of diversion
control at the Drug Enforcement Administration said he was troubled by
Purdue's timetable. "Completing it four years out," he said, "is not
helpful in addressing the immediate diversion problems which are rapidly
increasing."