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UNC researchers developing injectable implant for long-acting HIV/AIDS prevention
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The NIH awarded researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a 3-year, $1.8 million grant for the development of a new implantable drug delivery system that steadily releases preventive HIV medication over long periods of time, according to a press release.
The injectable formulation contains an anti-HIV drug, a polymer and a solvent. Once injected, the compounds solidify in the skin. The drug then slowly releases as the polymer degrades, the release said.
“This long-acting injectable formulation could provide a discrete and efficient method to protect against HIV infection and improve adherence, which is one of the major challenges of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP,” Rahima Benhabbour, PhD, study investigator and assistant professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, said in the release. “The formulation is adaptable to a number of drugs alone or in combination and can be fine-tuned to meet a targeted release regimen.”
Other long-acting injectable drug formulations for PrEP are currently being tested in clinical trials; however, a limitation of these formulations is that they cannot be removed once injected, the release said.
“The goal of our study is to develop an injectable polymer-based delivery system for long-acting PrEP that offers durable, sustained protection from HIV transmission, high efficacy of HIV inhibition, increased adherence and the ability to be removed in case of an unanticipated adverse event or when considering discontinuation of this form of PrEP," Martina Kovarova, PhD, study investigator and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine's Division of Infectious Diseases, said in the release. "If discontinuation of treatment is desired, the implant would be readily removable.”
The CDC will assist the research team with testing the injectable implant, which they hope will provide up to 3 months of protection.
“We’re in the very beginning stages of this project,” Kovarova said in the release. “This novel formulation has outstanding properties, and we are excited to move ahead.”
Disclosure: Infectious Disease News was unable to confirm relevant financial disclosures at the time of publication.