Tibotec gets AIDS: with a new wave of "resistant to resistance" HIV drugs, a record of consistent innovation, and a dynamic partnership with AIDS activists, J&J's little company is in it to win it. And end it. Publication Date: 01-AUG-07 ... In the war against AIDS, the chief enemy these days is resistance. Two decades after the first drug, AZT, was approved, there are now 27 HIV medications in four classes, with a first-in-class-five integrase inhibitor due from Merck this fall and several new classes heading for the homestretch. The transformation of this deadly disease into a manageable condition in the developed world has been a stunning achievement--but one relentlessly eroded by the ever-evolving-and-mutating virus. ... any new HIV drug able to lay claim to the market's highest "genetic barrier" (the ability to prevent the virus from escaping the drug's action by mutating) and back it up with proof of competitive potency and durability could deliver a knockout punch to the first-line market leaders ... But if J&J won its bet, it would grab a major share of the market in two of the three top HIV classes, while triggering a great leap forward for the treatment paradigm. By combining the diagnostic test with "resistant to resistance" drugs, the far-flung drug empire that was entirely lacking an HIV pipeline could, in one fell swoop, advance personalized medicine as here-and-now, state-of-the-art care in HIV.
