DFH Pharma partners with India's Hetero Group to develop 2nd-generation HIV drugs

Privately-held US HIV therapeutics developer DFH Pharma has entered into a research and product development agreement with India’s Hetero Group, to develop the next generation of HIV maturation inhibitor drugs. No financial terms of the collaboration were revealed.

Maturation inhibitors are a new class of HIV drug that blocks virus replication by interfering with the formation of infectious HIV virus. The clinical proof-of-concept for maturation inhibitors was established in HIV-infected patients with the first-in-class drug bevirimat. While bevirimat was shown to be safe, well-tolerated and effective in reducing virus in many patients, only limited effectiveness was observed in others.

It was determined that this variable response to bevirimat was due to small changes in the makeup of a key viral structural protein in different HIV strains. The goal of the current effort is to identify maturation inhibitor drugs that are effective against all HIV strains, including those with the types of changes associated with reduced sensitivity to bevirimat.