FDA Approves New HIV Med

Pfizer announced today that the FDA has approved its new HIV drug Selzentry (maraviroc). The drug is the first of a new class of HIV drugs to be approved in ten years. Selzentry is intended for patients who have the HIV-1 strain of the virus and are already resistant to multiple HIV drugs.

Selzentry is the first in a class of drugs known as CCR5 antagonists, which block the CCR5 co-receptor, the virus' predominant entry route into T-cells. Selzentry stops the R5 virus on the outside surface of the cells before it enters, rather than fighting the virus inside as do all other classes of oral HIV medicines.

Selzentry will become available next month. Pfizer plans on marketing the drug as Celsentri in other parts of the world. "Cell sentry", get it? As I mentioned in February, Selzentry must be taken twice a day, unlike many current HIV meds.