BioAlliance finds new class of HIV drug

France's BioAlliance Pharma has presented data on a new quinoline family acting as HIV integrase inhibitors at the 16th Conference on  Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Montreal, Canada.

The firm says the development of new integrase inhibitors with a  different mechanism of action could overcome the antiretroviral  resistance that has emerged due to mutations caused by the use of  integrase strand transfer inhibitors. This new quinoline family are  integrase binding inhibitors acting to prevent the 3' processing step.  The activity of the compounds was studied on wild-type viruses and those  carrying mutations in the reverse transcriptase or integrase (IN) genes.

In the study, quinoline compounds showed activity on the 3'processing  step and, consequently, on the strand transfer step too. Activity  against the HIV-1 virus was evaluated, demonstrating an inhibition of  HIV-1 replication in MT-4 and HeLa P4 cells . A compound called QNL111  was chosen as a potential lead and also displayed a comparable level of  efficiency against viruses resistant to RT inhibitors. Interestingly,  QNL111 is also active against the main resistance mutations selected by  raltegravir and elvitegravir, acting as INSTI's inhibitors.