How an Experimental Injection Could Revolutionize HIV Treatment

HIV treatment has come a long way since the early days of the epidemic. Patients can now take various combinations of dozens of medications keep the virus under control and halt their disease from decimating their immune systems and leading to more serious, often fatal outcomes. But harnessing HIV requires daily vigilance. Missing doses of the pills can give the virus the chance to develop resistance to the drugs and lead to a surge in new copies of HIV that flood the body. In a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Taiwan-based United BioPharma report encouraging results with a single injection that seems to stymie HIV as well as daily pill regimens. The results add to a growing number of studies suggesting that patients may be able to take pill holidays without putting their health at risk. In the study, 29 people who were diagnosed with HIV and received anti-HIV treatment in pill form for a little more than five years on average were randomly assigned to receive one of two doses of an injectable antibody called UB-421. It’s designed to stick to the same site on immune cells that HIV uses to infect cells; the idea is that UB-421 would compete with HIV and occupy more of these sites, preventing the virus from entering and infecting new cells. In fact, UB-421 binds to immune cells with 50 to 100 times greater affinity than HIV does and can even knock HIV out of the entry site when the virus is already there. All of the volunteers r...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized hiv-aids Source Type: news