Immunodeficiency News and Research

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Immunodeficiency (or immune deficiency) is a state in which the immune system's ability to fight infectious disease is compromised or entirely absent.

Crofelemer receives FDA approval for treatment of HIV associated diarrhea

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Limited announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration has provided Marketing approval to its partner in US, Salix Pharmaceuticals Limited, for Crofelemer 125 mg delayed-release tablets for the symptomatic relief of non-infectious diarrhea in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/ acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) on anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

2 Jan 2013

Biotest receives FDA approval for BIVIGAM to treat primary humoral immunodeficiency

Biotest AG announced today that Biotest Pharmaceuticals Corporation received approval for BIVIGAM for the treatment of patients with Primary Humoral Immunodeficiency (PI) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

20 Dec 2012

West African human population genomes provide important clues about evolution of HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may have affected humans for much longer than is currently believed. Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population provide important clues about how the disease has evolved.

20 Dec 2012

High-dose vitamin D can reduce risk of respiratory tract infections

Treating infection-prone patients over a 12-month period with high doses of vitamin D reduces their risk of developing respiratory tract infection - and consequently their antibiotic requirement. This according to a new study by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital published in the online scientific journal BMJ Open.

14 Dec 2012

Janssen announces U.S. prescribing information update for EDURANT tablets

Janssen Therapeutics, Division of Janssen Products, LP, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a prescribing information update for EDURANT (rilpivirine) tablets to include 96-week pooled data from the Phase 3 ECHO and THRIVE studies, which evaluated the efficacy and safety of EDURANT for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in antiretroviral treatment-naive adults.

11 Dec 2012

IQWiG investigates benefits of rilpivirine for HIV treatment

Since the start of 2012, a new drug called rilpivirine has been available for adult patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). It is marketed by two different pharmaceutical companies, by one as a single agent (trade name Edurant-) and by the other as a fixed combination with other HIV drugs (trade name Eviplera-).

8 Dec 2012

Men should see a doctor and be proactive about their health, say UAB experts

Experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) say a man's tendency to wait until the onset of sickness to see his doctor is a major detriment to health because key screenings are missed.

1 Dec 2012

New strains of HIV spreading in India, scientists warn

"While India has drastically reduced the spread of HIV over the past decade, new strains of the virus that cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are troubling medical scientists in this country," Inter Press Service reports (Devraj, 11/29).

1 Dec 2012

European health officials warn Greece to address increasing number of HIV cases

Officials with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said Greece must act to combat a rising number of HIV cases within high-risk populations, including drug users, or face increased health care costs in the future, Reuters reports.

30 Nov 2012

Membrane-proximal external region of HIV could be used to design vaccines

Beatriz Apellaniz, PhD holder of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country, has studied in her PhD thesis HIV regions that could be used to design a vaccine. The researcher has focussed her research on a specific region of the surface protein of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), which is responsible for the Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), one of the diseases with the greatest human morbidity and mortality.

30 Nov 2012

Routine HIV testing can reduce illness and death across Canada

Offering routine HIV testing to the general population rather than only to high-risk individuals will significantly reduce illness and death, argues Dr. Julio Montaner and coauthors in an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

27 Nov 2012

Lymphopenia driven diseases and the orphan drug industry: an interview with Damian Marron, CEO of Cytheris

Lymphopenia is when you lack the T cells of your immune system. T cells are very important for controlling infection. Probably the most known cause of lymphopenia is HIV.

23 Nov 2012

Abbott releases details on phase 3 hepatitis C registrational program

Abbott today released details on its phase 3 hepatitis C registrational program following promising results from its phase 2b clinical trial, known as Aviator, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) in Boston.

13 Nov 2012

Study shows reduced risk of liver-related mortality in African American women with HIV/HCV

A new study shows that African American women coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are less likely to die from liver disease than Caucasian or Hispanic women. Findings in the November issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, indicate that lower liver-related mortality in African American women was independent of other causes of death.

1 Nov 2012

African American women coinfected with HIV and HCV less likely to die from liver disease than Caucasian or Hispanic women

31 Oct 2012

Researchers discover how HIV-infected people develop very powerful antibody responses

Wits researchers have played a pivotal role in an AIDS study published today in the journal, Nature Medicine, which describes how a unique change in the outer covering of the virus found in two HIV infected South African women enabled them to make potent antibodies which are able to kill up to 88% of HIV types from around the world.

23 Oct 2012

Comparing animal and human cancer is of mutual benefit

A diagnosis of cancer once spelled the end for our animal companions but the launch today of a specialty cancer clinic, led by one of Australia’s leading veterinary oncologists at the University of Sydney, offers new hope.

14 Oct 2012

Study examines trends in HIV mortality

Overall death rates due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection declined over time between 1993 and 2007 for most men and women by race/ethnicity and educational levels, with the largest absolute decreases for nonwhites, but rates remain high among blacks, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

9 Oct 2012

CytoDyn announces update on feline immunodeficiency virus therapeutic antibody program

CytoDyn Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the development of new therapies for combating infection with immune deficiency viruses, announced today that it is presenting an update on its Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) therapeutic antibody program at the 19th West Coast Retrovirus meeting in Palm Springs, California.

8 Oct 2012

Roche announces availability of new HIV-1 viral load test in the U.S.

Roche announced today the U.S. availability of a new HIV-1 viral load test based on the company's proprietary dual-target approach. The COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test v2.0 for use with the High Pure System enables labs to combine an FDA-approved process for manual specimen preparation with an automated real-time PCR analyzer for amplification and detection.

From Roche Sequencing and Life Science 4 Oct 2012