You said in answer to one of the questions on this fourm that drug companies are working on "alternative delivery methods" for hiv drugs. What sort of "alternative methods" are being studied? and by who? What sort of time frame would you feel we are looking at before they are available?

Well, they're looking at (1) extended delivery pills, some of which, e.g., Zerit XR, are on the way; (2) drug patches, but this appears very tricky and problematic with ARVs and does not appear to be progressing too rapidly; (3) injection medications, e.g., T-20 and T-1249, which can be infected once (T-1249) or twice (T-20) a day. Other efforts are underway to help with adherence issues, including making pills more compact (e.g., the development of phos-amprenavir) and finding ways to simplify regimens to once daily. We should expect this research to start to significantly affect antiretroviral treatment over the next few years.