Coverage of 2006 International
Conference on AIDS

August 14–18, 2006, Toronto, Canada

First Day Dominated by the
Two “Bills”—Clinton and Gates

by Paul Dalton, August 14, 2006

Day one at the 16th International AIDS Conference was dominated by the two “Bills”—Clinton and Gates. Their joint press conference commanded an overflow crowd, intent on hearing news of their efforts to address the global pandemic. There was plenty of star power and commitments of both funds and attention. While it is always good to hear such things, it is results that count. Can the ex-President and the World’s Richest Man make a difference? Time will tell.

Things started out fairly light on the treatment research front. The International Conference hasn’t been the scene of many scientific breakthroughs since the famous Vancouver meeting, but his year’s confab promises somewhat more for treatment activists to chew on.

Press releases from two major players in the HIV pharmaceutical front came out first thing in the morning highlighting their pipeline and their products.

GlaxoSmithKline and Shionogi announced completion of the Phase I safety study of their investigational integrase inhibitor, called 364735. No data were presented, but the companies did report the results allowed them to choose a dose to move forward with for their Phase II trial, set to open later this year. The companies also announced they will present data from the Phase I trial at an ‘upcoming medical conference in 2007’.

Gilead Sciences is presenting a range of studies of their products, both approved and experimental. Gilead announced more data from their pivotal 934 study comparing Atripla (Sustiva + Truvada) to Sustiva + Combivir. The 96-week data were similar to the 48-week data which were the basis for Atripla’s approval by the FDA. More people taking Atripla had viral loads under 400 copies/ml (75% vs. 62%) and better increases in CD4+ cell counts (270 vs. 237). Also fewer people taking Atripla developed the M184V mutation associated with resistance to both Epivir (lamivudine/3TC ... a component of Combivir) and Emtriva (emtricitibine/FTC ... a component of Truvada). Finally, there were fewer significant adverse events among those taking Atripla, with anemia (6% vs. 0%) being the major difference.

Another Gilead poster looked at twelve different studies of Sustiva plus various nucleoside backbones. Their poster showed Truvada performing best compared to other backbone regimens, which included most of the nucleosides currently in use. Finally, Gilead presented two posters demonstrating a lack of drug-drug interactions between their investigational II, GS-9137 (boosted with RTV) and Truvada and AZT.

There was an interesting oral abstract discussion on how HIV enters immune system cells, which included new imaging technology allowing scientists a better view of the HIV entry process, and more research on HIV’s use of co-receptors CCR5 and CXCR4.

The first full day of the conference felt a bit disorganized and scattered. On my plate for tomorrow are presentations on dendritic cells, HIV replication dynamics, viral co-infections and hopefully more.