STOPPING THE REPLICATION OF HIV

AN HIV CURE BY 2020?
HIV research has come a long way since the disease was discovered in the 1980's.Antiretroviral therapy as a major milestone that changed the lives of millions,but, the goal now is to find an HIV cure by 2020.We shall look at one of the most advanced strategies to make a functional cure of HIV.
STOPPING THE REPLICATION OF HIV
One of the most advanced HIV treatments seeks to inhibit the virus' ability to replicate it’s RNA and produce more copies of itself.A similar approach is used to treat herpes infections,and although it doe not get fully rid of the virus,it can stop its spread.The French company Abivax showed last year in a clinical trial that this approach has the potential to become a functional cure of HIV.The key to its potential is that it can target the reservoir of HIV viruses that ‘hide’ inactive within our cells.
“Current therapies suppress the virus in a circulation by inhibiting the formation of new viruses, but they don’t touch the reservoir.Once you stop,the virus comes back in 10-14 days, ”says Hartmut Ehrlich,CEO of Abivax.”ABX464 is the first drug candidate ever shown to reduce the HIV reservoir.” The drug called ABX464,binds to a specific sequence in the RNA of the virus,inhibiting its replication. In a phase 2a trial, several patients were given the drug in addition to antiretroviral therapy. Eight out of fifteen patients treated with ABX464 showed a 25%-50% reduction of their HIV reservoir after 28 days, compared to no reduction in those taking only antiretroviral therapy.Erhlich highlights that a key factor to the potential of this drug is that it does not only target the reservoir of HIV hiding in blood cells, but also the latent viruses hiding in the intestines, the largest reservoir of HIV.The company is now planning a phase 2b clinical trial to confirm the effects of the drug in the long term.
STEPHEN MUMO

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