Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Wednesday December 16, 1998
Protease inhibitors are potent drugs used to fight HIV infection. HIV patients can fail on their medications because of the complex dosing regimens that can require them to take dozens of pills a day. Preliminary results of studies involving Pharmacia's HIV drug Rescriptor were presented on Wednesday at the International Conference on the Discovery and Clinical Development of Antiretroviral Therapies in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
"The complexity of antiretroviral combination therapy, as well as numerous side effects reported with protease inhibitors, make this type of regiment fine-tuning crucial, " said Dr. Jeffrey Goodgame, principal investigator.
"These studies indicate that adding Rescriptor to two different protease inhibitor combinations has an overall beneficial effect on viral load and CD4 cells, and they also address crucial adherence issues such as the need for simpler dosing schedules and lower doses of certain medications." Rescriptor, a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, is taken with other drugs in this same category or with drugs known as protease inhibitors, in what is known as a "cocktail therapy."
Pharmacia said Rescriptor, when taken with other drugs, allows for a dose reduction of indinavir, another HIV drug, by 25-50 percent. And in nelfinavir containing combinations, it allows for a simpler dosing schedule of twice a day for Rescriptor and nelfinavir.
The company said further results from these studies will be presented at the 6th Annual Conference on Human Retroviruses in Chicago in late January.
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