New AIDS Drug Likely to Fall Short of 2003 Demand

A new AIDS drug will be available to only about 15,000 patients by the end of 2003. Roche Holding AG, a Swiss healthcare group, said its manufacturing plant in Boulder, Col. has been working to meet the challenges to making the complex drug Fuzeon, but initial yields had been lower and cycle times longer than projected. Roche, developing the drug with the Durham, N.C.-based Trimeris Inc., said earlier this year it was targeting 25,000 patients. Injectable Fuzeon is designed for patients resistant to current antiretroviral therapies. Fuzeon is the first of a new group of drugs called fusion inhibitors that are designed to block HIV from entering healthy human immune cells. The companies expect to supply it to a maximum of 32,000 patients by the end of 2004 and 39,000 in 2005.

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