HIV protease inhibitors head to market

摘要

Since its approval in 1987, Glaxo Wellcome's (London) AZT has been the mainstay of retroviral therapy for patients with HIV infection. AZT was the first of a class of HIV drugs known as reverse transcdptase (RT) inhibitors, which act by blocking the viral enzyme reverse transcriptase, Together with improvements in the prophylaxis and treatment of opportunistic infections, these drugs have extended the survival of AIDS patients by perhaps one to two years. The newest combination--using AZT and BioChemPharma' s (Laval, Canada) RT inhibitor, 3'TC--looks particularly promising and should receive approval from the U;S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA, Rockville, MD) early next year However, even two-drag and three-drug regimens using RT inhibitors are only partially effective against the virus, so the next major therapeutic advance will come from a new class of drugs called HIV protease inhibitors, the first of which should reach the market in 1996.