AEGiS-GMHC: BULLETIN: More "L" Drugs to Come

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

BULLETIN: More "L" Drugs to Come

Gay Men's Health Crisis Treatment Issues, Vol. 5, No. 7 - October, 1991

AIDS treatment activists from GMHC, ACT UP/NY, and Project Inform met with executives from Merck & Co, Inc. on September 20, 1991 to discuss the company's plans for continued development of its reverse transcriptase compounds, the so called "L" drugs. L-679-661 is already in phase II trials at sites in Maryland and Alabama. Merck officials told activists that preliminary analysis of efficacy results should be available by February 1991, and that, barring unforeseen developments, large scale testing of the "L" drugs, in mono- and combination-therapy should begin during the first three months of 1992. Officials also disclosed plans to test L-697-661 in combination with AZT in Germany.

Test tube studies show that another promising "L" compound, L-229 may be more easily absorbed and less toxic; though, so far no major toxicity has been observed in L-661 in human trials. It should be noted that Merck is developing a whole range of "L" drugs, and even if L-661 shows efficacy from these initial trials, other "L" compounds may also go into large scale trials. Activists have urged Merck to make clinical trials and other access programs available simultaneously with the initiation of any large scale trials to insure the drug is available to all PWAs who have failed nucleoside analogue therapy.

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Copyright © 1991 - Treatment Issues. Reproduced with permission. Treatment Issues is published twelve times yearly by GMHC, Inc. All rights reserved. Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged. Subscription lists are kept confidential. GMHC Treatment Issues, The Tisch Building, 119 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 fredg@gmhc.org http://www.gmhc.org

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