Leona
Getting To Know About AIDS
Initially started since the last centry, an unknown desease spread across the world. The desease then was named as AIDS, by it’s full name of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. It literally means a disease caused by being infected with HIV, human immunodeficiency virus. HIV is single-stranded RNA virus, is a group of Retroviridae - Lentivirus - Human Lentivirus.It can be devided as HIV-1 and HIV-2 according to genetic difference.HIV-1 is the main prevalence virus strain. The major propagation methods are Sexual Transmission, Mother-to-Child Transmission, and Blood Transmission. Clinically, it is mainly divided into four stages, including acute infection period, incubation period, symptom period and onset period. Most infected patients will not experience obvious symptoms at the initial stage of infection, and some infected patients may occur symptoms similar to influenza.
Ever since the discovery of HIV，more than 70 million people have infected it globally. Although the total number of infected patients continues to increase, but with effective treatment and prevention measures, the public has begun to understand the virus of AIDS.And the number has slowed down in recent decades, and the amount of fatality is declining.
Methods of Treating AIDS
The treatment of AIDS started with monotherapy, for example, zidovudine is the first anti AIDS drug, but this treatment is prone to drug resistance. Today, cocktail therapy, also known as HAART, Highly Active Antiretrovirus Therapy, has become the most effective treatment. It uses three or more antiviral drugs and reduced drug resistance.
What is Sunlenca?
Although there are antiviral drugs that can effectively inhibit AIDS virus effective
some patients still shows cross resistance. And Sunlenca (Lenacapavir),a capsid inhibitor, plays an important role when it comes to this situation. Sunlenca is a new type of antiretroviral drug. The forms of medication consists oral tablets and subcutaneous injection. It is used in combination with other antiretroviral drugs to treat adult patients infected with HIV-1. patients choose their own treatment plan according to their own needs, making the combination change more flexible and reducing the problem of drug resistance.The drug takes effect by blocking the protein coat of the virus, thereby destroying the life cycle of the virus.Sunlenca has no cross-resistance with existing drugs, so it is a breakthrough in treating patients with multiple drug resistance. In addition, patients with multiple drug resistance Sunlenca only needs to conduct subcutaneous injection of Sunlenca once every six months , which greatly improves the compliableness of the patients, reduces the nursing burden, saves a lot of time for patients, and achieves the goal of long-term treatment at the same time. On August 22, 2022, the European Commission (EC) granted the marketing license of Sunlenca (Lenacaavir) developed by Gilead Sciences, and on December 22, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also approved the marketing application of Sunlenca. However, now only the United States, Canada and EU member countries have approved the use.
Clinical Trial of CAPELLA
The clinical trial of CAPELLA is a 2/3 phase, double-blinded, placebo-controlled global multi-center study to evaluate and improve the treatment scheme and safety of Lenacaavair. The conclusion is that at the 52nd week, 83% of patients who received Sunlenca combined with other drugs could not detect the viral load. In terms of safety, Sunlenca's adverse reactions during treatment are also very mild, and nausea and swelling at the injection site are only few.
Based on the long-term effectiveness and safety of Sunlenca, it is one of the effective programs to suppress AIDS virus. In the future, it is hoped that drugs can reduce the price and improve the popularity of drugs. I think it is still uncertain whether this investigational drug will be commercialized in the future. Although the effectiveness and safety of this drug are relatively good according to CAPELLA's data, I personally think there are still many uncertain factors in it, which can be determined only after repeated human experiments.
Resources
1. Nada Hassanein. A new HIV treatment shot is given only twice a year. It could be a ‘game changer’. USA today. 6:30 a.m. ET Dec. 30, 2022.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/12/30/hiv-injection-treatment-lenacapavir-approved-fda/10959568002/
2. FDA News. FDA Approves New HIV Drug for Adults with Limited Treatment Options. December 22, 2022.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-new-hiv-drug-adults-limited-treatment-options
3. Gilead. Sunlenca (lenacapavir) Receives FDA Approval as a First-in-Class, Twice-Yearly Treatment Option for People Living With Multi-Drug Resistant HIV. December 22, 2022
20221222-en.pdf (gileadchina.cn)
4. 全球首个HIV 长效疗法获批！吉利德半年一次的长效疗法Sunlenca获欧盟批准上市|病毒载量|皮下注射|HIV|吉利德|TAF|-健康界 (cn-healthcare.com)
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