Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
PRNewswire - November 15, 2001
With the introduction of PhenoSense GT, which is available across the United States and covered by most third-party payors, ViroLogic is now the only company in the world to offer a combination resistance test providing physicians with all available drug resistance information in one integrated, easy-to-interpret report.
PhenoSense GT combines ViroLogic's two proprietary assays: PhenoSense(TM) HIV, its rapid, direct and sensitive phenotypic resistance test, and GeneSeq(TM) HIV, its genotypic assay. PhenoSense GT is the latest product developed by ViroLogic's research team to help physicians and patients individualize treatment regimens to fight HIV. It is designed to provide the most comprehensive information available to assist physicians in selecting optimal treatments for their patients, particularly for the increasing number who have highly complex patterns of HIV drug resistance.
"PhenoSense GT demonstrates ViroLogic's leadership in HIV drug resistance technology and service by meeting an increasing market need, and should contribute to the already steady growth of our patient testing business," said Bill Young. "We will continue to leverage our leadership and experience to make individualized medicine a reality for HIV/AIDS and other serious diseases in the future."
Physicians have increasingly been using phenotypic and genotypic tests in combination as more patients experience highly complex and difficult-to-manage drug resistance. However, since the two tests are usually performed at different labs and results are always provided on separate reports, it is often difficult for physicians to get the results of both tests at the same time in an easy-to-interpret, side-by-side format.
Each PhenoSense GT patient sample is evaluated using ViroLogic's PhenoSense technology, which directly and quantitatively measures resistance of a patient's virus to all of the available antiretroviral drugs. At the same time, each sample is also evaluated with a genotypic test, which reads the genetic makeup of the virus to identify mutations that could lead to resistance.
By using genotypic data to supplement phenotypic results, PhenoSense GT can provide more insight into resistance patterns, thereby providing physicians with the most comprehensive information for optimizing treatment selections, especially in challenging and complex resistance cases. PhenoSense GT results are delivered in 14 days or less.
"More and more of my patients are experiencing drug resistance and treatment failure," said Howard A. Grossman, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Attending Physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center.
"PhenoSense GT, combined with good patient history and clinical judgment, gives me the resistance information I need to make more informed treatment decisions for my patients facing HIV drug resistance."
HIV drug resistance is a rapidly growing problem that is jeopardizing the success of AIDS therapy for the nearly 500,000 Americans being treated with antiviral drugs for HIV infection. Widespread resistance to these drug regimens is greatly complicating treatment for these patients, especially those who have been on treatment for many years and have developed resistance to individual drugs, or even to entire classes of therapy.
A recent study by researchers at the University of California-San Francisco predicted that more than 40 percent of HIV-positive individuals in San Francisco will have drug-resistant strains of HIV by 2005. Another study corroborating this finding on a national scale will be presented as a late-breaking clinical study at ICAAC on Tuesday, December 18, 2001 in Chicago.
About ViroLogic
ViroLogic is a biotechnology company advancing the fields of individualized medicine and pharmacogenomics, helping to make them realities in healthcare around the world today. The Company discovers, develops and markets innovative products to guide and improve treatment of serious viral diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis. Its leading expertise in virology, molecular biology, clinical research, engineering, information systems, and quality assurance has resulted in technology to assess drug resistance and susceptibility in viruses that cause these diseases, which affect millions of people worldwide.
The Company's current products are designed to optimize HIV/AIDS treatment regimens, providing physicians with important information to help select appropriate drugs for their patients and leading to better outcomes and reduced costs. These products are also being used by major pharmaceutical companies to develop new and improved antiviral therapeutics targeted at emerging drug-resistant viruses. More information about the Company and its technologies is available at http://www.virologic.com or http://www.phenosense.com.
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking, including statements relating to the Company's product development efforts. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to whether ViroLogic's products will achieve market acceptance, whether payers will authorize reimbursement for our products, whether we will be able to expand our sales and marketing capabilities, whether the FDA or any other agency will decide to regulate our products or services, whether we will encounter problems or delays in automating our process, whether we will successfully introduce new products using our PhenoSense technology, whether intellectual property underlying our technology is adequate, whether we are able to build brand loyalty, whether we will be able to raise sufficient capital and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in our reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2000.
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