BI's tipranavir effective as HIV salvage regimen

Boehringer Ingelheim's novel non-peptidic HIV protease inhibitor,tipranavir, has been shown to suppress HIV in patients who have already failed treatment with multiple PI-based regimens, according to Phase II results presented at the 1st International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tipranavir is the leading drug in the non-peptidic PI class and was developed with the hope that it would prove effective against PI-resistant strains of the AIDS virus. "At a time when a significant number of HIV-1-infected patients require treatment with salvage regimens, these data indicate that tipranavir...may become an important component in the HIV armamentarium," commented Martin Markowitz of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, USA, one of the investigators in the trial.

The 48-week, open-label dose-finding trial involved 41 patients who received tipranavir at levels of 500mg or 1,000mg bd in combination with Abbott's peptidic PI Norvir (ritonavir), Merck Sharp & Dohme/DuPont Pharmaceuticals' non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor Stocrin/Sustiva (efavirenz) and one nucleoside RTI. All the patients had never received an NNRTI before, but at least two PI-based antiretroviral regimens.