health news - page 2

positive nation

Compiled and edited by Laurence Gibson

“Our patients are individuals,” she said. “We often don’t get it right first try, and we can now have several goes before we find the right regime for the patient. We used to ‘treat to live’ - now we help people ‘live with treatment’”.
Only 15,000 will get T-20 during 2003
Roche Products, manufacturers of the new fusion inhibitor anti-HIV drug T-20 (enfurvirtide, trade name Fuzeon), have announced that manufacturing difficulties mean that they will probably only be able to supply the drug to 12-15,000 patients worldwide by the end of 2003 rather than the 25,000 originally envisaged. Roche are mass-manufacturing T-20 in partnership with the smaller drug firm Trimeris, who originally developed it. Trimeris financial officer Bob Bonczek told the news agency Reuters that projected T-20 sales in 2003 would be at the lower end of the $57 to $164 million (£35 to £102 million) range forecast. Although the initial price of T-20 is tightly under wraps till licensing, this revenue yield would indicate a price of about $7,000 per patient per year - twice as expensive as many other HIV drugs. If all goes well T-20 is expected to be licensed by US regulators in March.
45 per cent ‘rebound’ within two years
Nearly half of patients who initially respond to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) will find their HIV reappearing - ‘rebounding’ over the course of two years, according to results of a European study presented at the 6th International Congress on HIV in Glasgow. However, the likelihood of an HIV rebound decreases fourfold over that time period, suggesting that many patients eventually find a regime that works for them. Amanda Mocroft, from University College London, presented data on 1470 patients from the EuroSida study. The group of patients all had undetectable viral loads at the beginning of the study, and all were taking between three and five HIV drugs. Nearly half - 45.9 per cent - had experienced a viral load rebound by the end of the two-year study. However
the rate of rebound decreased significantly over time from 38.8 per cent during the first six months, to 9.8 per cent two years after initial suppression.

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