Panacos' bevirimat safe and effective in Ph IIb study

The USA's Panacos Pharmaceuticals says that data presented at the 48th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Washington DC, USA, from a Phase IIb study of bevirimat, show that its lead HIV-1 Gag maturation inhibitor, appeared safe and effective in both treatment-experienced and treatment-naive HIV-positive patients, established the bevirimat dose-response curve, and prospectively confirmed factors that predict patient response to treatment.

The data demonstrated a mean viral load reduction of -1.18 log10 copies/mL after 14 days of therapy in the 31 bevirimat-treated patients in Study 203 who were free of key baseline Gag polymorphisms and who had bevirimat trough levels above the minimum target of 20mg/mL. In addition, 91% of patients with these two response predictors had at least a 0.5 log10 viral load reduction by week two with a maximum treatment response of 2.03 log10.

Consistent with earlier studies, bevirimat was well-tolerated, with a safety profile comparable to previous results where bevirimat had been indistinguishable from placebo through the 14 days of treatment, the firm noted.