Vicriviroc Demonstrates Potent and Sustained Viral Suppression Through 48 Weeks of Therapy in Treatment-Experienced HIV-Infecte...( Results of VICTOR-E1 Phase II Stu...),Health

Results of VICTOR-E1 Phase II Study Presented at 15th Conference on

Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI)

BOSTON, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Schering-Plough Corporation (NYSE: SGP) today reported that final results of a Phase II clinical study showed vicriviroc, its investigational CCR5 antagonist, demonstrated potent and sustained viral suppression through 48 weeks of therapy in treatment- experienced HIV-infected patients, when administered once-daily as a single tablet in combination with an optimized ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitor containing antiretroviral regimen. Vicriviroc is a next-generation extracellular inhibitor of HIV infection designed to block entry of infectious virions into uninfected CD4 cells via antagonism of the CCR5 co-receptor.

Researchers reported the data in a late-breaker oral presentation at the 15th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) on Feb. 4.

In the study, significantly more patients who added vicriviroc 30 mg once daily to a new optimized background therapy (OBT) had fully suppressed HIV-RNA (less than 50 copies/ml) at 48 weeks compared to patients receiving new OBT alone (56 percent vs. 14 percent, p=0.0002).

"These 48-week results demonstrate that vicriviroc added to OBT provides significant and durable viral suppression compared to OBT alone in this treatment-experienced HIV-infected patient population," said Barry S. Zingman, M.D., medical director - AIDS Center, Montefiore Medical Center and the Einstein/Montefiore Center for AIDS Research, and associate professor of clinical medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y., who presented the data. "Importantly, this benefit of vicriviroc was observed
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