Press room ... 2004 archive

Panel of Experts Identify a Long
but Hopeful Road in the Fight Against AIDS

October15, 2004

San Francisco, CA—A panel of AIDS clinicians and researchers convened in San Francisco on Thursday night to discuss the next ten years in the fight against AIDS. Project Inform's Community Forum, "A Vision of Hope: AIDS Research in the Coming Decade" was a rare opportunity for the public to hear some of the nation's top experts on HIV research and ask pertinent questions.

The panel agreed that the "protease era," which began with the release of the class of drugs known as protease inhibitors in 1996, will soon be augmented by a new generation of therapies. The researchers said that a new class of drugs called entry inhibitors would start to become available in clinical trials in the early part of 2005. The first of these, called R-5 inhibitors, are designed to put a barrier at the site where HIV enters the T cell, a key cell of the immune system which is a primary target of HIV. There was agreement by the panel that these new drugs could hold a major key to the next steps toward improved health, but is far from a cure.

"We are unsure if the new drugs will cause the virus to mutate and attach itself to the T-cell in other, potentially dangerous ways," according to Steven Deeks, MD and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF General Hospital. "But we know that R-5 inhibitors are definitely an advance in understanding the immune system."

The consensus of the panel was that many drug companies are opting to cut back on AIDS research. According to panelist Ed Tramont, MD, Director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), "There were 80 drugs in development just a few years ago, but companies have cut back on these promising treatments by 25% because the incentives are not what they once were. Pharmaceuticals realize that it may be difficult to realize a large profit unless there are governmental guarantees." Others on the panel pointed out that the biggest need for AIDS drugs is in the developing world, where companies must sell the drugs at very low prices and face competition from generic drug manufacturers around the world.

Other panelists included Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD from the Harvard Medical School and Senior Investigator for the Center for Blood Research; Mike McCune, MD, PhD Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology; Paul Volberding, Program Leader HIV Malignancies Research Program, UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Martin Delaney, Founding Director of Project Inform. Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Laurie Garrett, moderated the event.

The seven panelists are in town for a three-day closed meeting of 32 clinicians and researchers that begins today and is sponsored by Project Inform and the Linda Grinberg FAIR Foundation. The 9th Immune Restoration Think Tank (IRTT) brings in the nation's top researchers from several disciplines to share new knowledge and brainstorm potential new ways of combating HIV. Over the past several years, these IRTTs have directly benefited people living with AIDS by assisting in the realization of immune restoration technologies. As a direct result of these efforts, numerous national and international collaborative efforts have been initiated; a number of protocols are currently enrolling or about to begin enrollment; and increased attention is being paid to the field of immune-based therapies by the research community worldwide.