Amarillo Biosciences, a US-based biotech company has announced that a clinical trial of ABI's interferon-alpha lozenges for treatment of influenza will be launched in Taiwan in 2011. The pilot study, approved by Taiwanese Department of Health, will enroll the first of 60 planned subjects in January. Half the patients with confirmed influenza A infection will be assigned to five days of twice-daily treatment, with interferon lozenges and half will receive placebo. All the patients will also receive standard, five-day treatment with Tamiflu. The aim of the study is to explore the possible benefits of combining oral interferon with Tamiflu in the treatment of influenza. Final study results are expected to be available in July 2011. This new study is expected to add to the body of evidence that oral interferon is safe and effective in treating and preventing flu. A 200-subject study completed in Perth (Australia) last year, found that healthy volunteers who took oral interferon once-a-day during the winter cold and flu season, had significantly fewer episodes of moderate to severe acute febrile respiratory illness (cold/flu with a fever), compared to volunteers who took placebo. Previously, human studies in the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Japan and China reported that oral interferon is a safe and effective treatment for influenza.