Coverage of 2008
International AIDS Conference
August 3–8, 2008, Mexico City, Mexico
Apricitabine continues to show good results
by Paul Dalton, August 5, 2008
Data on the experimental NRTI, apricitabine, were presented today
at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, showing it
is well tolerated when taken by people with experience taking HIV
drugs. The results add to earlier
research which showed that it might prove to be a good treatment option
for people whose HIV has grown resistant to the NRTIs Epivir (lamivudine/3TC)
and Emtriva (emtricitabine/FTC).
Dr. Cox, of Avexa (the company developing apricitabine), presented
data comparing 2 doses, (600 and 800mg) taken twice daily to 150
mg of Epivir, in people failing an HIV regimen with Epivir.
After 24 weeks, no serious adverse events or deaths occurred in
people taking apricitabine. Most were mild or moderate and were
GI-related, including diarrhea and nausea. The overall rates of
adverse events were similar between people taking apricitabine
and Epivir. This is good news for Avexa as Epivir is widely considered
one of the best tolerated HIV drugs.
While these safety data are encouraging, the bigger question facing
apricitabine is how potent it is. Earlier presentations on this
study suggested relatively good short-term anti-HIV activity, b
ut longer-term data failed to show a statistically significant
difference between people on apricitabine vs. those who continued
on Epivir. At the 2008 CROI, people from Avexa claimed this might
be due to the high potency of the optimized background therapy
used by both groups in the study. While this might be true, Avexa
still must prove that apricitabine is both potent and well tolerated.
