Wyeth-Ayerst statement on EMIAT and CAMIAT results; Major clinical trials presented today at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session.

PHILADELPHIA--(HealthWire)--March 26, 1996--Results of two major clinical trials involving the antiarrhythmic drug amiodarone were presented today at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session in Orlando.

These two studies are being referred to by the acronyms EMIAT, which stands for European Myocardial Infarct Amiodarone Trial, and CAMIAT, which stands for Canadian Amiodarone Myocardial Infarction Arrhythmia Trial.

Wyeth-Ayerst is very pleased by the consistency of the results of EMIAT and CAMIAT. Both studies demonstrated a reduction in mortality due to arrhythmia - reaffirming the efficacy of Cordarone (amiodarone HCI) in preventing arrhythmias and arrhythmic death. Wyeth-Ayerst will be submitting these data to the Food and Drug Administration. Cordarone, currently marketed in more than 100 countries, has been available in the U.S. since 1985. Cordarone(R) I.V. was introduced in the U.S. in 1995.

Cordarone has been used successfully for many years to prevent life-threatening refractory cardiac arrhythmias, but EMIAT and CAMIAT are the first large, well-controlled clinical trials to demonstrate that Cordarone favorably affects outcome in patients who have recently sustained a myocardial infarction and who have ventricular arrhythmias or poor left ventricular function. This news is very important for those patients, their families and the physicians who treat them.

Though the trials differed in the specific patient populations studied as well as in some other respects, both were large, placebo-controlled studies designed to determine if amiodarone therapy reduces mortality in patients who have had a myocardial infarction. The trials were conducted from 1990 through 1995 and involved a total of more than 2,600 patients - among the largest placebo-controlled studies of this kind ever undertaken.

Amiodarone, HCI is marketed in North America under the trade name Cordarone(R) by Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, a division of American Home Products Corporation (NYSE: AHP). Sanofi Pharmaceuticals markets Cordarone outside North America and provided some of the funding for the studies.

Wyeth-Ayerst is a major research-oriented pharmaceutical company with leading products in the areas of women's health care, cardiovascular and metabolic disease therapies, central nervous system drugs, anti-inflammatory agents, vaccines and generic pharmaceuticals. American Home Products Corporation ranks among the world leaders in sales of pharmaceutical and health care products. It is also a leader in agricultural products, animal health care, medical devices and food products.

CONTACT: Wyeth-Ayerst, Philadelphia

Audrey Ashby, 610/971-5823