AIDS Treatment News #186 - November 5, 1993
Atevirdine (U87201E) is an antiretroviral drug being developed by Upjohn; it is one of the company's "BHAP" [bis(heteroaryl)piperazine] series of compounds. It is a non- nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor. The main problem with drugs in this class is that HIV rapidly develops resistance to them; however, the drugs are not equivalent, in that resistance develops differently with different ones. A previous clinical trial (ACTG 199) gave ateviridine combined with AZT to a few patients, and did not find resistance after six weeks. Also, in laboratory tests, ateviridine is synergistic with AZT (meaning that the two worked better together than would have been expected by adding together how well they worked separately). It is because of these results that the current trial was judged worth doing.
This trial will last for about one year. Volunteers will be randomly assigned to one of three groups: atevirdine 600 mg per day, atevirdine 200 mg per day, or placebo; meanwhile all volunteers will be using the standard dose of AZT.
Note: Atevirdine (U87201E) should not be confused with delavirdine (U90152S), a later BHAP drug. Compared to atevirdine, delavirdine is effective against HIV in smaller concentrations; however, there is less experience with it in human use. Delavirdine is now in an early trial at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
For more information about the atevirdine trial, contact the site near you. You can find the phone number and contact person (in one of the cities listed above) by calling the Upjohn AIDS Hotline, 800/432-4702.
931105
ATN18603
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