Leading US AIDS specialist Dr Stephen Miles, director of UCLA AIDS Institute's CARE clinic, has condemned current drug development strategies for AIDS and urged more focus on killing HIV-infected cells in an interview with Poz magazine this month.
"AIDS was the great new area for drugs from 1993 to 1995…then in 1996, AIDS was virtually cured…many companies stopped dead in their tracks. Now three years later suddenly it's "Oh my god! We've got resistance! Let's develop the next generation of drugs."
Miles proposes that drug developers need to focus on killing HIV-infected cells with new types of drugs rather than developing me-too protease inhibitors with similar resistance patterns to drugs already licensed, and specifically cites ABT-378 as a drug with little new to offer.
To read more about innovative approaches to eradicating HIV-infected cells, go to aidsmap.com's review of the subject.