Hi Nelson,

I hope you are doing well in health! You are such an inspiration. Since you made the salvage therapies sight- i was wondering what drug or drugs look closing to making it possibly to approval in 2008 for salvage patients like myself. Thank you. You are a true hero and inspiration.

Jim

Dear Jim,

Like you, I am a "salvage" patient with multi-drug resistance looking for the best new drug.

We are starting a "dry period" in HIV drug approvals that will last around 3 years, so for those of us who have failed Fuzeon, raltegravir and have X4 tropic virus, very few drug will be coming our way. Tanox, a company that was bought out by Genetech, has an I.V. drug (a monoclonal antibody) that will start phase II studies in a few weeks. That is about all we have as a new agent for multi-drug resistant virus.

As you know, we just went through a wave of new drug approvals last year. Raltegravir, maraviroc and TMC-125 (a non-nuke) were approved. But a few patients already have raltegravir resistance. Our main job as activists is to remind companies that we exist and that there will be a need for better drugs in the future.

I am following gene therapy and stem cell research as a true hope to change the nature of how we treat HIV.

I hope you do not have raltegravir resistance and that your tropism test showed an R5 virus.

Nelson