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The following are excerpts of news articles that include IPM.
When last week the news spread that the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis had lost its appeal against the Indian law on drug patents, there were many who could celebrate: apart from the 420,000 citizens in hundreds of countries who had signed a petition asking the company to withdraw from the case, the UN, international institutions and naturally millions of sick people in the world’s South. At last, no longer forgotten...
This is exactly why the recent public-private-nonprofit alliances directed to developing – and making available to all – new drugs for the most vulnerable populations are so important. “In addition to DNDI, this is the case with Medicines for Malaria Ventures, the International Partnership for Microbicides and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development,” Ravinetto explains. |
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It is now 25 years since the discovery of HIV.
In 2006 about 40 million people in the world were living with the disease.
Whilst scientists around the world have struggled to find a vaccine for HIV, here in London they are dedicating their time to finding a product that women can apply to block the virus from entering the body.
The gel called Microbicides would provide a female initiated prevention option…….
Professor Robin Shattock from St George's University of London has been leading the research into HIV prevention and treatment since the discovery of the disease.
He emphasised the importance of the bridging the gap between science and the community:
"It benefits the advocates because it keeps them informed about the type of work the scientists are doing and it benefits the scientists because it keeps them in touch with the needs of the people so they can develop a product that these people will want to use. It doesn't matter how good it is at blocking the virus, if those it is meant for aren't going to use it."
Professor Shattock is keen point out that the first generation of Microbicides need not be 100% effective to be rolled out in HIV high risk areas.
"As the scientific research advances so will the efficacy of the product. However, a Microbicide that is efficient 60% of the time, introduced into 73 low income countries would avert 2.5 million HIV infections over three years." |
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New generations of microbicides that are formulated using antiretroviral drugs have renewed hopes of getting a tool that would prevent HIV infection before 2015. Since ARVs have been shown to prolong the lives of people infected with HIV; scientists are positive that these could be turned into effective microbicides.
“We are very optimistic about the second generation of microbicides because unlike the first generation, we know of the biological responses between the virus and the drugs,” says Dr Zeda Rosenberg, the chief executive officer of the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM).
Dr Rosenberg describes the anti-HIV microbicide formulations based on ARVs as highly potent and HIV specific. They also come in small molecules, which help scientists develop different combinations.
“Microbicides specifically designed to be active against HIV as well as combination therapies hold the promise of even greater protection against HIV transmission than earlier formulations,” says IPM. |
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More than 1,000 leaders from around the world came together in Nairobi this week to discuss issues related to HIV and Aids. While conferences on the pandemic are rather commonplace, this meeting was different. This time, African women — doctors, activists, nurses, grandmothers, community leaders, and women living with HIV — took centre stage at the International Women’s Health Summit.……Microbicides are not yet available, but researchers and advocates in Africa and around the world are working to develop them and carry out clinical trials to test if they are safe and effective in preventing HIV infection. By putting protection from HIV into the hands of women, a microbicide would slow the spread of the virus and finally allow women to take control over their own health. We must prioritize research on these promising preventive technologies. At the same time, we must do more with the tools that already exist. The female condom should be affordable and accessible to women in Africa....These women are the ones who have told us of the desperate need for female-initiated HIV prevention approaches. After all, their lives and the future of our families and countries depend on it. |
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“A number of chemicals are being tested as microbicides. Some are applied as gels or foams, though the most desirable form of delivery is agreed by most people to be a small ring that can be fitted at the neck of the cervix and would allow the microbicide to diffuse out slowly over the course of weeks or months. That would, indeed, be a ‘fit and forget’ method that would protect against infection from demands for instant sex by drunken husbands – although Zeda Rosenberg, the head of the International Partnership for Microbicides observes that some men find the gels enhance their experience and encourage their use.” |
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“Scientists at the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) are also developing gels including a combination of AIDS drugs that could be applied several hours, or perhaps even days, before sex. This follows a deal struck with drug companies last November that gives scientists access to several drugs in a new class called HIV entry inhibitors, which attach to the virus and prevent it from entering host cells. These medicines are also under development as oral treatments for people infected with HIV.
‘Women need choices,’ said IPM executive director Zeda Rosenberg.
‘The goal is to develop microbicides as rapidly and cheaply as possible but these trials can’t be short-changed,’ she said, referring to the stringent requirements of regulatory authorities.” |
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(Translated from German)
“Microbicides are chemical substances similar to those that are used in antiretroviral treatments after an HIV infection. They are a means of prevention and a virus killer that women can introduce into the vagina as a gel or fluid or with the use of a ring. ‘Microbicides can block an infection at various stages,’ explains Zeda Rosenberg of the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM), which supports research as a non-governmental organization. Microbicides could act on the surface of the mucous membranes and prevent the HIV virus from penetrating the mucosa. Once the virus reaches the mucosa, it attacks certain cells. At this point microbicides can then prevent the virus from ‘docking’ on the cells. As a last barrier, they could prevent copies of the virus from being produced. They would also block the so-called ‘reverse transcriptase.’” |
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“‘Women need multiple drugs with multiple delivery options,’ said Zeda Rosenberg, chief executive officer of the International Partnership for Microbicides, a group based in Silver Spring, Md.
She said that variety in microbicides is essential because, like birth control, ‘women have different needs at different stages in their lives.’” |
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“Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of the International Partnership for Microbicides, which has sponsored a number of the trials, believes that since microbicides aren’t designed to enter the bloodstream and suppress HIV there, resistance won’t be a huge a hurdle as it is for ARVs used in treatment. ‘The studies so far, with more of the ARV products, suggest very low levels of systemic absorption,’ she says. ‘It may be that there is insufficient absorption to select for resistance. But we won’t know that answer until we do the efficacy trials.’” |
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“‘You need to plant a lot of seeds to have flowers growing,’ [Zeda Rosenberg] said. ‘Drug development is a very risky business. You see many failures before you have a success. There has been a lot of pressure on the microbicide field, to have a home run right away, and that is misguided.’
‘It will take a lot of effort, and you need to have a lot of these products developed so that you can ensure that one of them will work.’
And she cautioned against hopes that this first generation will provide a 100-percent shield.
Even if the cream is only 30-percent effective it would be a useful public-health option as it would slow the spread of the global HIV pandemic, said Rosenberg.” |
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“The Johannesburg focus groups were designed to test three different gels, for use once a day, that may someday contain an ingredient that kills H.I.V. before it can infect the woman. The sessions were run by the International Partnership for Microbicides (I.P.M.), which is based near Washington. I.P.M. scientists realize that creating an effective medicine is just half the battle, and so they are taking a proactive approach to marketing the gel; before the microbicide’s active ingredient has even been invented, researchers have spent years figuring out how to get women in a variety of cultures to use it.
‘A microbicide could be marketed as a sexual aid, or as something to make a woman feel more attractive inside and out,’ Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, I.P.M.’s C.E.O., told me when I first met her in 2004. She was still puzzling it out when I spoke to her this year in South Africa. ‘Maybe H.I.V. prevention would be a secondary selling point,’ she said. ‘This could be a lubricant that stops H.I.V. If the product made sex great, they would use it even if there were a trust issue.’” |
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“Microbicides are more likely than vaccines to be an effective HIV prevention tool, at least in the short term—it is possible that the first microbicide could be licensed as early as 2010. The International Partnership for Microbicides will call for an immediate doubling of microbicide research funding, from $160 million to $320 million a year, at the AIDS 2006 conference in Toronto, according to the Toronto Star. The Gates Foundation has funded microbicide research, but not to the same degree as it has invested in HIV vaccine research. Only time will tell whether that turns out to be the right bet. We suspect not.” |
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“A gel or cream offering sexually active people protection against HIV infection could be on the market by 2010, when South Africa hosts the soccer World Cup.
Such creams ought to be made as easy to use as toothpaste in order for them to be popular, the CEO of the International Partnership for Microbicides, Dr Zeda Rosenberg, told the Sunday Times this week.
She said: ‘We need to design these products so that women and their partners enjoy them, and want to use them every day for the rest of their lives.’” |
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“Merck & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. gave royalty-free licenses to the International Partnership for Microbicides to develop gels or creams to shield women from the AIDS virus.
The licenses grant IPM rights to distribute three Merck compounds and one Bristol-Myers Squibb compound in developing countries. The drugs belong to the family of entry-inhibitor compounds that block HIV from invading human cells.” |
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“Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb have both agreed to offer their compounds – which they are still developing – royalty-free to the International Partnership for Microbicides to develop, manufacture and distribute in the developing world.
. . . ‘These historic agreements mark a turning point in the pharmaceutical industry’s commitment to developing a safe and effective microbicide to protect women from HIV,’ said Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, chief executive of IPM.” |
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