Can the further clinical development of bevirimat be justified?

Abstract

HIV-infected patients who fail standard therapeutic regimens are in need of new drugs that will remain active against drug-resistant viral variants. There is a constant need to develop new compounds that will not be compromised by problems of cross-resistance, as so often occurs among members of the same family of drugs, for example, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), and protease inhibitors. Indeed, successful second-line and salvage regimens will commonly include members of drug classes to which a patient has not previously been exposed, for example, a protease inhibitor and an integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) in the case of an individual who began therapy with two NRTIs and a NNRTI, as well as the use of fusion inhibitors, for example, enfuvirtide, and CCR5 antagonists, for example, maraviroc.