Less Toxic Longer Lasting HIV Drug Candidate

Yale University researchers are testing a new chemical compound that suppresses HIV while protecting the immune cells and remains effective for weeks in a single dosage. Great promise is being shown by this new compound in animal studies as a possible new candidate to enhance current HIV treatments without increasing the toxic side effects according to the researchers.

This work was based on the work of William Jorgensen and Karen Anderson who previously had used computational and structure based design methods to develop a class of compounds created to target a viral protein that is needed for HIV to be able to replicate. This study worked to refine this class of compounds to boost potency and lower the toxicity while improving the drug like properties, while working in collaboration with Priti Kumar’s lab at Yale. The new compound was tested in mice using transplanted human blood cells and infected with HIV.

The compound achieved key goals of HIV treatment in the mouse models by suppressing the virus to undetectable levels in the blood, protecting the immune cells that the virus infects, and the compound worked in synergistically with current approved HIV medications according to the researchers. In addition working with Yale drug delivery expert Mark Saltzman it was found that the effects of a single dose of the compound lasted for nearly a month as it delivers in a long acting nanoparticle form.

Further testing is needed on this compound, but it has great potential for improving the treatment of HIV. If this new drug candidate works synergistically with all current classed of HIV drugs as well as those being tested in trials, it will enhance the potency and will be a better combination medication treatment. It is estimated that HIV affects over 37 million people worldwide.