NOVEL DRUGS AND THEIR COMBINATIONS USED FOR TREATING AIDS

Mehnaz Showkat, Humaira Bilal, Bilquees and Nahida Tabassum*

ABSTRACT

Over past 35 years HIV/AIDS has emerged as a major global health problem across the globe. Although the Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) has significantly contributed to the suppression of viral load and has greatly prolonged the patient survival rate, issues such as complexity of the regimen, drug interactions, adverse effects, cross resistance between the drugs, still pose a hurdle to successful treatment. There is a persistent need of newer antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) with increased potency, improved pharmacokinetic profiles and improved activity against resistant HIV strains. Proper understanding of HIV life cycle and interaction of the virus with host cell factors has led to the development of newer and effective ARVs like, Ibalizumab, Fostemsavir, Doravirine etc. These drugs offer a number of advantages over traditional drugs and present a new choice for patients with drug resistant disease. Fixed Dose Combinations (FDC’s) of currently available drugs have proven beneficial by reducing risk of emergence of drug resistant strains, less risk of medication errors, better patient compliance, reduced cost of treatment and simplified drug supply management. Besides, drugs belonging to different classes are currently in different stages of clinical trials, thus broadening the future scope of treatment.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, HAART, ARVs, Fostemsavir, Elsulfavirine, FDC’s.