Microbicide research gets a big boost

The long struggle to get women to protect themselves against the HI virus received a major boost this week, when two global pharmaceutical companies signed agreements enabling researchers to create a microbicide using their promising anti-AIDS compounds. Merck & Co. Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb announced on Monday that they had signed separate license agreements with the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), a non-profit group, to develop new antiretroviral compounds as potential microbicides. Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb will each grant IPM a royalty-free license to develop, manufacture and distribute their compounds for use as microbicides in resource-poor countries. The compounds are part of a new class of antiretrovirals known as "entry inhibitors", designed to prevent HIV from entering host cells. "This is a welcome, exciting and positive addition to what we have on the table," Dr Quarraisha Abdool Karim, director of the Women and AIDS programme at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), told PlusNews. But Abdool Karim, who is also an IPM board member, warned that "we're still quite a way from clinical testing (on humans) ... it is not going to happen tomorrow or next year - it can take anything from 7 to 10 years". Nevertheless, the involvement of big pharmaceutical companies was a significant move because, with the exception of Merck, they had ignored microbicide research, she added. "It's an important achievement. If we can mobilise the resources of 'big pharma' we can really start to move forward - and a lot more ... [quickly] - with microbicide research," Abdool Karim noted. Microbicides in the form of gels, creams, suppositories, films, sponges or vaginal rings create a chemical barrier that could substantially reduce the transmission of HIV/AIDS and other STIs when used in the vagina or rectum. They are not yet available, but microbicidal products and compounds are currently under investigation by smaller biopharmaceutical companies, nonprofit organisations and public companies. Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director UNAIDS said in a statement on Monday, "The search for an effective microbicide is crucial to providing women with more options to protect themselves against HIV infection."