HIV/AIDS Drugs: February 2007 Archives

India's HIV/AIDS agency said it has ordered a survey to see if doctors are providing the correct drugs to people infected with the virus, after a report said many doses are wrong or too strong.

The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) called for the survey in response to findings by the Geneva-based UNAIDS that Indian doctors wrongly prescribed "second-line" drugs, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

"We want to find out whether doctors are giving the right drugs and the right doses," Sujatha Rao, who heads NACO, told PTI on Sunday.

"We have found out that doctors are not equipped enough," she said.

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- To look at him, you wouldn't know Mark McClelland is dying.

McClelland, a ramrod-straight 6-foot-4 (1.9 meters), easily strides up the San Francisco hill to his house and tussles playfully with his golden retriever. While McClelland has a form of HIV that's overcome all seven drugs he now takes, he can smile because hope is on the horizon.

Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co. and others are in the final stages of developing drugs that offer unique ways to bar HIV from infecting human cells. For the 65,000 people in the U.S. whose virus, like McClelland's, is resistant to three or more drug types, the new therapies promise to spur the first revolution in care in a decade. The debut of combination therapy in 1996 doubled life expectancy for patients. This latest generation of treatments offers new options to hold off the opportunistic infections that occur when HIV leads to deadly AIDS.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective immediately, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest AIDS healthcare, prevention and education provider in the United States which operates free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean and Asia, including 13 healthcare centers in California and Florida, has banned pharmaceutical sales representatives from Pfizer Inc., the world's largest drug company, from calling on AHF's medical providers and staff at its healthcare centers. Two weeks ago, AHF filed a lawsuit against Pfizer, the manufacturer of the blockbuster erectile-dysfunction (ED) drug, Viagra (sildenafil citrate), over its irresponsible marketing tactics and advertising for the company's drug.

AHF's move today reinforces its concern over Pfizer's questionable marketing tactics for Viagra that the Foundation believes encourages the recreational use of the popular ED drug, as well as the Foundation's disappointment over the drug giant's lack of response over the past year to repeated concerns raised by AHF. In its letter today (via fax & first class mail) to Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler, AIDS Healthcare Foundation President Michael Weinstein and AHF's Chief of Medicine, Charles Farthing, M.D., stated:

Thailand said it has opened talks with US drugmaker Abbott Laboratories on lowering the price of an AIDS treatment, which could avoid the need for a generic version Bangkok approved last week.

Thailand has already issued a so-called "compulsory license" for the anti-AIDS drug Kaletra, which effectively breaks the drug's patent and clears the way for the kingdom to either produce or import cheaper generic versions.

Hoping to prevent Thailand from turning to generics, Abbott has agreed to work with the kingdom to find ways of reducing the cost of treatment, the health ministry said.

Developed by Temple University researchers, 2-5AN6B could someday work as an effective treatment for HIV especially in conjunction with current drug treatments. Their work is published in the January issue of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

A nucleic acid, 2-5AN6B inhibited HIV replication in white blood cells from a group of 18 HIV infected patients by up to 80 percent, regardless of the patients’ treatment regimens.

"A cure for HIV infection remains an elusive goal despite the significant impact of current treatments because of the virus’ ability to adapt to and resist those treatments, and bypass the immune system’s natural defenses," said Robert J. Suhadolnik, Ph.D., prinicipal investigator and professor of biochemistry at Temple University School of Medicine. "This compound prompts the body to restore its natural antiviral defense systems against the invading virus."

Current drugs for HIV work by blocking one of the steps toward virus replication.