HIV Drugs and Patent Laws

In my earlier blogs, I spoke about the options of developing novel drugs for HIV AIDS, one of the fatal diseases threatening human life. More than developing drugs, it is important to ensure that the drugs reach the patients. But are the drugs reaching all the patients?

Patent laws give Multinational pharmaceutical organisations sole authority for production of novel drugs. giving them the sole right to develop and sell the drug. MNC’s sell the patented drugs at much higher prices, leaving treatment unaffordable to the poorer sector. Though the cost the MNC's quote for the drug is justified keeping in mind the cost incurred in R&D of these drugs, it remains a dream for many.

Even if other pharma companies manage to identify the composition of the new drug, they cannot develop generic drugs as it is patented. This guarantees the sales and increases profits for the patent holding organisation in return for their investment.

Recent news on NDTV, reported that Indian government refused to grant Abott the patent for 2 second phase HIV drugs. It is obvious that this is a great news for the pharma companies that work on generic drugs. But the real point of discussion is whether it is an advantage or disadvantage to the patients who are suffering? Is this going to make HIV treatment available to all, or is it still going to be unaffordable?

Alternate approaches to HIV treatment

In my earlier blog, I had written about alternative approaches of drug discovery for HIV infections. I recently read a blog about engineered E.coli that could solve Sudoko puzzle, (of all things !!!!). The writer feels that the organisms used in the experiment can no longer be called bacteria or virus due to the huge amount of engineering done to them. This made me think if it was possible to use such engineered organisms to tackle the HIV challenge.

All of my ideas are currently in a theoretical stage. I feel that further study and research into these arenas will reveal a promising solution to the HIV situation.

HIV Treatment - Integrase as target

The mutations in HIV leading to drug resistance has made treatment of HIV-1 infection challenging. I wonder, if alternative approaches can be explored to control HIV infections and simultaneously handle the mutations issue.

In my opinion, HIV-1 Integrase is a better target than Protease and Reverse Trancriptase, the other two viral enzyme. The lack of human homologue and the vital role the enzyme Integrase plays in the development of HIV, leads me to this opinion. Raltegravir and Elvitegravir, the two drugs developed to control HIV by targeting the Integrase enzyme have been somewhat successful in controlling the virus. However, the rapid rate of mutations in HIV has resulted in the organism building resistance to these drugs as well.

I am mulling the possibility of developing a drug that can inhibit the integration of viral DNA with the target DNA by blocking the target DNA’s availability. I am assuming that the failure of integration and further replication of the viral DNA should lead to the disintegration of the virus. The challenge here is to identify a methodology that would release the target DNA when the viral DNA is disintegrated and make sure that there is no viral DNA left to integrate to the released Target DNA.

I am sure there are others out there who are already working on these thoughts, and I would love to hear your opinion.