Three Indian institutes working on microbicides for HIV control

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Three Indian institutes working on microbicides for HIV control

Friday, October 06, 2006 08:00 IST

Nandita Vijay, Bangalore

The St. 's Medical College in Bangalore, YRG Care Chennai and

the National AIDS Research Institute in Pune have been selected as

part of a global research initiative to test the efficacy of

microbicides in the prevention of HIV.

While in one trial project, the HIV drug Tenofovir will be applied

as a gel, the other study will be carried out to assess usefulness

of Cellulose Sulphate in preventing vaginal HIV transmission. The

Screening Committee of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,

government of India cleared the projects for the studies. The

international non-governmental organization Conrad has granted Rs. 5

crore.

Uganda and South Africa are also conducting the Cellulose Sulphate

trials along with the Indian research institutes, the St. 's

Medical College in Bangalore, YRG Care Chennai and National AIDS

Research Institute in Pune. The efficacy of Tenofovir study will be

carried out to see how much the gel will be absorbed in the blood

safety and suitability parameters.

For the first project, NARI in association with Bronx Institute, US

is doing the Phase II trials on the US FDA approved oral anti HIV

drug Tenofovir, which is being used as a micro-biocides gel. This

two-year trial has 200 women recruited.

Under the second project, St. 's Medical College, and YRG Care,

have recruited 400 high risk women and the random Phase III trials

are on to study the results of Cellulose Sulphate application for

HIV transmission.

Currently, there are more than 60 candidate microbicides in the

pipeline but not one of these are available and medical scientists

are hoping that within the next three years, the products could be

licensed for marketing.

Sources informed that studies in the past showed that Tenofovir

application as a gel in monkeys blocked transmission of Simian

Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) to HIV. But medical scientists opined

that advanced studies were needed to determine if absorption of

Tenofovir into the blood stream could be beneficial in enhancing the

gel's effectiveness. In the NARI trial, the adverse and long-term

side effects are also being studied.

The World Health Organisation has acknowledged use of microbicides

as an effective agent against HIV. In fact this microbiocide gel is

now seen as an option to AIDS vaccine because it has no spermicidal

activity and would help the women protect themselves against the HIV

transmissions, stated sources.

http://www.pharmabiz.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=35478