The limelight brightens drug developer's prospects.

• Author: McMillan, Alex Frew
• Position: Trimeris Inc.

For Trimeris Inc., no news is definitely bad news. The Durham drug developer, spun out of research by two Duke University AIDS specialists in 1993, tinkered away quietly in the lab for years. It grabbed a few minutes of fame when it went public two years ago thanks to T-20, a compound it hopes will be the first of a new type of drug to fight HIV.

But potential lures the limelight only so long, and Trimeris slunk back into the shadows. Its stock, at $12 for the initial offering, dipped below $4 last fall. Now it doesn't move unless there's headline-grabbing action from regulators or trial results.

The spotlight returned in February when T-20 was the buzz at an AIDS conference in Chicago. Phase-two clinical trials, with just a few patients, are looking good. And the Food and Drug Administration has T-20 on a fast track toward approval. That's typical for AIDS drugs, but not at this early of a stage. The news shot the stock above $25, more than double its price a month earlier.

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Development-stage companies are hard to handicap. On one hand...