An old article , coming to fruition ??? Australian scientists...

An old article , coming to fruition ???
Australian scientists from drug development company Biotron are looking to start a clinical trial in Sydney next year to unlock a new treatment for HIV.
The Sydney-based company, a leader in its field, is targeting hidden pools of the virus in reservoir cells where it can hide from existing therapies.
In the wake of American actor Charlie Sheen revealing he has HIV, Biotron’s managing director Michelle Miller warned HIV infection rates are at a 20-year high in Australia, with 26,000 Australians living with the disease.
Dr Miller said Biotron was focused on its drug BIT 225, which worked in a different way to other HIV antiretroviral drugs — which don’t kill the virus but can prevent its growth. “We have been focused on the virus that is left over once you treat people with current antiretrovirals,” she said.
Dr Miller explained that there were cells in the body that were infected by the virus early on, not just the T cells, called macrophages. The Biotron boss said these were “long-lived” cells that were like “burning embers” that go out into all of your tissues.
“You don’t eradicate that (macrophage) source of virus,” she said.
“The reason you keep people on antiretroviral drugs is because the virus is constantly coming out at low levels from these (macrophage) cells, infecting the T cells. The virus gets wiped out in the T cells with antiretroviral drugs but the drugs do not get rid of those burning embers that still exist.”
The company, which has been working on its drug development for 12 years and has been talking to big pharmaceutical companies, is specifically targeting the virus in those reservoir cells as an add-on to existing treatments to prevent that ongoing cycle of the virus.
Dr Miller said though current drugs effectively got rid of the virus, a patients’ health was not 100 per cent and they would die earlier than those without the virus.
“Having that low level of the virus in those hidden cells is what causes immune activation, so if you can get rid of that you can hopefully improve these long-term health issues in those patients by getting their immune system back to where it should be,” she said.
Cure and eradication was now front and centre in the HIV field, Dr Miller said, adding there was no need for more drugs that worked on T cells.
“When we progress to a phase two study in Australia early next year we will add BIT 225 into antiretrovirals to see if we (have an) impact (on) immune activation.
“We need to show that we can impact on immune activation in this trial and then we’ll be able to find a partner for this.”