Biotron Progresses HIV Clinical Trial in Australia

An international AIDS conference has been told that an Australian anti-viral drug in development is able to stop the virus spreading.

The drug, developed by Sydney based company Biotron and known as BIT225 was tested in a study involving 18 HIV positive patients at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital.

Scientists at the Fourth International Workshop on HIV Persistence During Therapy heard the drug is able to inhibit replication of the HIV virus in monocyte cells isolated from the HIV-infected patients, where until now, it has been able to "hide" from current drug treatments. Monocytes collected from the patients were treated with BIT225 to see the effect of the drug on virus within the cells.

Biotron's senior virologist Dr John Wilkinson said that BIT225 was able to stop the virus replicating in these storage cells by up to 99 per cent.

Moreover, it was also able to stop the virus transferring to uninfected T Cells.

"In people infected with HIV there is an ongoing cycle of infection of T Cells with HIV from reservoir cells and, at present, there is no drug that can target this process," he said.

"Treatment and elimination of this reservoir remains a major therapeutic challenge. Even patients who have been treated with highly active anti-retroviral therapy can experience rapid virus rebound because of these virus reserves in reservoir cells.

"By specifically targeting HIV in reservoir cells, BIT225 offers the potential to stop this on-going cycle of infection."

The company is now progressing protocols for a Phase Ib/IIa trial of BIT225 in HIV patients. This trial is in addition to the proposed Phase II trial of the same drug in patients infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV).