GAITHERSBURG, Md., June 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Panacos Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that it has successfully completed a single, escalating dose Phase 1 clinical trial of the first-in-class HIV Maturation Inhibitor, PA-457. Following oral administration to uninfected, healthy volunteers, PA-457 was well tolerated and exhibited favorable oral bioavailability and pharmacokinetics. A detailed update on PA-457 will be made in July at the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand.
Based on the promising results of the first clinical study, Panacos has now progressed the compound into a multiple dose Phase 1 study to examine the safety and pharmacokinetics of PA-457 administered once daily to uninfected, healthy volunteers for 10 days. Dr. David E. Martin, VP, Drug Development at Panacos commented: "We are very pleased that the results of our first human study with PA-457 strongly support the continued development of this novel oral HIV inhibitor. Following successful completion of the multiple dose Phase 1 study, we will move PA-457 into Phase 2 testing in HIV-infected patients later this year."
PA-457 has a mechanism of action that is different from approved HIV drugs and as a result exhibits potent activity against HIV strains resistant to current therapies including inhibitors of reverse transcriptase and viral protease. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of HIV strains resistant to currently approved drugs. This often leads to treatment failure, so there is a critical need for new therapies that are effective against drug-resistant HIV strains. PA-457 interferes with HIV maturation, a key step in viral replication that occurs as new virus particles are released from infected cells. PA-457's novel target was discovered by Panacos scientists and their collaborators at the National Institutes of Health, as described in a major publication in November, 2003 (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA Volume 100, Pages 13555-13560). In addition to its antiviral potency in vitro, recent studies have demonstrated that PA-457 has significant antiviral activity in vivo, using the SCID mouse model of HIV infection.
Panacos Pharmaceuticals is engaged in the discovery and development of small molecule, orally available drugs for the treatment of HIV and other major human viral diseases. The Company's proprietary discovery technologies focus on novel targets in the virus life cycle, including virus fusion and virus maturation, the first and last steps of viral infection.
For more information on Panacos Pharmaceuticals, please visit http://www.panacos.com , or email: info@panacos.com .
SOURCE Panacos Pharmaceuticals, Inc.