Panacos Pharmaceuticals: Attacking HIVSince AIDS was first recognized in the early 1980s, pharmaceutical companies around the world have worked to come up with drugs that attack the HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, that causes it. A small biotech firm out of Waterton, Mass., could be on its way to making history in the fight against AIDS. Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: PANC) is developing an HIV drug, bevirimat, that is the first in a new class of oral HIV therapeutics under development called maturation inhibitors. Put simply, maturation inhibitors are drugs that would keep the virus from maturing or spreading. The therapeutics were discovered in 1999 by Panacos scientists and their academic collaborators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The 45-employee company has completed seven clinical studies of bevirimat in more than 300 subjects, and is currently in second-phase clinical trials. Phase II trials are small-scale drug studies in patients that are designed to characterize a drug's effects on a particular disease and generally compare the new drug to therapy that is already known to be effective. What is unique about bevirimat is that it could help overcome HIV's growing resistance to existing antiviral drugs. In June 2006, bevirimat was described by New Scientist magazine as a “revolutionary drug…that leaves ‘HIV defenceless.’” spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer spacer
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