Latest Research Supports New AIDS Drug

Maraviroc is designed for patients who become resistant to standard therapies

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

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WEDNESDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- New research offers more evidence that a new class of AIDS drug can provide major benefits for certain patients who have become immune to existing medications.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved maraviroc, known by the brand name Selzentry, in August 2007 after a 24-week study showed it had beneficial effects. It was the first new HIV oral medication approved in more than a decade.

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The new study followed the patients for another 24 weeks, and found that more than 40 percent of them had reduced levels of the AIDS-causing HIV virus in their blood.

"We're really able to do something we haven't been able to do before, essentially rescue someone with drug-resistant virus and gain control of their HIV infection," said principal investigator Dr. Roy Gulick, director of the Cornell HIV Clinical Trials Unit at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Since the 1990s, new generations of drugs have made major strides in treating the virus that causes AIDS. Patients are often able to control the levels of the virus in their bodies and live for years.

However, the virus has the ability to mutate and evolve, and it's often able to adjust to resist the killing powers of medications. Some people also become newly infected with strains of HIV that are already immune to certain drugs.

"Roughly, between a quarter and a third of patients [are resistant] to the classic classes of drugs," Gulick said. "These are patients who really need treatment options."

The new study, published in the Oct. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, followed 1,049 HIV patients who were resistant to three classes of HIV drugs. Some patients received doses of maraviroc, while others received a placebo. The study was funded by Pfizer Inc., the maker of the drug.

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