Highlights of research presented at ICAAC

Among presentations made at the 49th Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), being held in San Franciso, USA, were ones form Schering-Plough, Basilea, Shionogi and BioCryst, and Cytheris.

US drug major Schering-Plough presented long-term data from an ongoing open-label extension P2 VICTOR-E1 study of vicriviroc, an investigational CCR5 receptor antagonist, in treatment-experienced HIV-infected patients. The 96-week study involved 85 treatment-experienced HIV infected patients who received 48 weeks of open-label vicriviroc (30 mg once daily) plus an optimized antiretroviral regimen containing a ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor after completion of 48 weeks of treatment in the double-blind phase of the VICTOR-E1 study. The results of the study showed that vicriviroc plus optimized background therapy achieved durable virologic suppression and increased CD4 cell counts, and was generally well tolerated over two years of therapy.

New research data presented at ICAAC-2009 reveal that in-vitro potency of Swiss drugmaker Basilea's BAL30072 translated into high efficacy in in-vivo models for respiratory tract infection, urinary tract infection, septicemia and soft tissue infections involving multi-resistant gram-negative bacteriae including Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Additionally, eight posters were presented on ceftobiprole, a broad spectrum anti-MRSA cephalosporin antibiotic, demonstrating its strong in-vitro activity against staphylococci including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), enterococci and streptococci isolated from patients with severe infections such as blood stream infections, complicated skin and skin structure infections and hospital acquired pneumonia.

In a head-to-head trial sponsored by Japanese drugmaker Shionogi, an investigational drug to combat influenza was equivalent to oseltamivir (Tamiflu), a researcher presenting at ICAAC said here. A single injection of peramivir worked as quickly as five days of oral oseltamivir to alleviate symptoms of seasonal flu in a large study in three Asian countries, according to Shigeru Kohno of Nagasaki University School of Medicine in Japan. An injectable anti-influenza drug is badly needed because severe illness can slow the body's ability to absorb oral drugs, he said. Indeed, there have been recent cases in which an injectable form of zanamivir (Relenza) -- a non-licensed formulation - has been used as last-hope treatment when other flu drugs failed. Peramivir - like oseltamivir and zanamivir - blocks the influenza virus enzyme neuraminidase, which is critical to the virus's ability to spread through the body. The drug has been slowly working its way through the clinical trial process and has a US Food and Drug Administration Fast Track designation, issued in 2006 to its US developer, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals.