Marcus Conant, MD, on More Research Needed With HIV Therapies
The Chief Medical Officer of Addimmune discussed the unmet need with HIV and research the company is conducting.
“We need a new approach to treating this disease. We've got ways of blocking the virus, but it requires taking a pill each day for the rest of your life. And that creates a huge barrier for many people. Can they afford them? Can they remember to get them, are they available? And on and on? Or do the drugs not work for those patients? We think that [our] approach will be life saving for future patients.”
AGT103-T (Addimmune, a subsidiary of American Gene Technologies) gene therapy, when combined with multiple analytical treatment interruptions (ATI), was well-tolerated and demonstrated viral control in people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), according to a paper published in Frontiers in Medicine. Six of 7 participants previously infused with the gene therapy in a phase 1 study (NCT04561258) were enrolled into a second ATI study (NCT05540964). Investigators found that viral setpoints were consistently below 25,000 copies/mL and participants had relatively stable CD4 T cell counts in all participants that had 1 ATI in the study and 4 that had 2 ATIs.
CGTLive® spoke with Marcus Conant, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Addimmune, to learn more about the candidates the company is developing for treating HIV, including AGT103-T and other programs in the pipeline. He also emphasized the need for novel treatments for people with HIV, as around 40,000 people in the US are not eligible for current treatments and more outside the US do not have easy access to these treatments.
