Phytopharm is a very small UK based company. It's share price was down at only 4.5p last week prior to the announcement about the successful safety trials. A couple of years ago a mate of mine bought Phytopharm shares at
60p each (not on my recommendation I hasten to add). But then trials on their new slimming drug (hoodia) did not go well and Unilever withdrew their funding and the share price collapsed. In less than a year the companies market capitalisation dropped from circa £60M to circa £5M. Their MD and FD both resigned last November and until recently they were only operating with an Interim CEO.

So that was a huge milestone for the company last week to be able to report successful safety trials of Cogane. As the companies survival had been looking particularly dodgy. Human trials are scheduled for second quarter next year but originally (pre - Hoodia collapse) should have started already.
The MJF Institute have donated over $1M to this research.

Interesting quote from phytopharm's web site:

"in preclinical models has been shown to stimulate the release of GDNF in the brain and therefore has the potential to overcome many of the difficulties associated with GDNF administration."

http://www.phytopharm.com/cogane/

The results of the pre clinical trials are impressive, the results of the safety trials appear to be satisfactory - so lets hope this company gets enough finacial support to get through the human trials!

Chris