( e CA-SP1 junctionand has been observed...)Preclinical Study Finds Protease Inhibitor-Resistant HIV May Have,Reduced Potential to Develop Resistance to Panacos' Bevirimat,Health

Dr. Graham P. Allaway, Panacos' President and Chief Operating Officer commented, "Clinical studies to date suggest resistance to bevirimat does not develop rapidly, in contrast to some currently marketed HIV drugs, possibly because there is selective pressure to maintain the integrity of the capsid-SP1 cleavage site sequence, which is highly conserved among HIV strains. While resistance tends to develop eventually to all HIV inhibitors, the new study suggests there may be a greater hurdle to bevirimat resistance development in patients with PI-resistant virus. These patients represent one of the major groups who could potentially benefit from novel-mechanism HIV drugs such as bevirimat."

About Panacos

Panacos is developing the next generation of anti-infective products through discovery and development of small molecule oral drugs for the treatment of HIV and other major human viral diseases. HIV infects approximately 1.7 million people in North America and Western Europe and approximately 40 million people worldwide. Approximately 650,000 patients are treated annually for HIV in the United States and Western Europe. Resistance to currently available drugs is one of the most pressing problems in HIV therapy and the leading cause of treatment failure. Panacos' proprietary discovery technologies are designed to combat resistance by focusing on novel targets in the virus life cycle, including virus maturation and virus fusion.

Panacos' lead candidate, bevirimat (PA-457), is the first in a new class of oral HIV therapeutics under development called maturation inhibitors, discovered by Panacos scientists and their academic collaborators. Based on its novel mechanism of action, bevirimat is designed to have potent activity agai
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