Chinese scientists have announced that a chemical compound for
treatment of both HIV and Hepatitis B is being tested on
humans.
Extracted from a Chinese herb called Inula Britannic, the
compound--1,5-di-O-caffeoylquinic acid (1,5-DCQA), has been shown
to work on HIV or HBV (hepatitis B virus) in a way different
from?medicines currently in use , Dong Junxing, a leading
scientist with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, said on
Tuesday.
"If clinical experiments back up initial findings, the compound
will be an irreversible HIV and HBV integrase inhibitor, which
provides a new alternative for AIDS and hepatitis B treatment,"
said Dong.
Another discovery is that the new compound has few side effects
even in large doses. "Preliminary experiments on animals show that
suspending, or stopping, the use of the compound during treatment
does not lead to deterioration of the disease, which will be a big
advance from current anti-HBV and HIV/AIDS medicines, such as the
popular cocktail therapy," the professor said.
Dong and his team started research in 1993 with filtering
effective anti-HBV constituents from more than 100 kinds of Chinese
herbs. Two years later they began to experiment on ducks and
monkeys.
Aware of the similarities between HIV and HBV viruses at the
outset, Dong explained he tried the chemical constituent on HIV
after discovering its successful inhibition of HBV.
In his experiment with monkeys, he stopped medication after
weeks and found that while most animals in the group treated by the
cocktail therapy appeared to deteriorate the other group being
given the new compound showed better results.
"Half of the monkeys were recuperating and the other half
continued in a stable condition with the treatment," Dong said.
The research team has begun a six-month clinical research on
about 200 healthy volunteers. "If it goes smoothly, a new medicine
will be on the market in two years," he said.
"We will try a combined prescription of the new drug and current
medicines to see whether it has better results.”
The price of the new drug may well be lower than others
currently on the market, Dong said, because it is manufactured
rather than being extracted from herbs.
(China Daily February 23, 2006)