This phase I study is designed to evaluate the safety and pharmacokinetic properties of the inhibitor PA-040 in humans after a single dose. Maturation inhibition is a new target discovered by Panacos. The first-in-class HIV maturation inhibitor, bevirimat, has shown significant anti-HIV activity in HIV patients and is in phase IIb clinical testing.
The company's second-generation maturation inhibitor program is designed to develop chemical analogs of bevirimat with distinct pharmacological properties including the potential to have activity against HIV strains resistant to bevirimat, should these resistant strains appear in the clinic in the future.
“Having already demonstrated proof of concept of maturation inhibition with bevirimat, we plan to test several second generation compounds, including PA-040, in single dose testing and then select the optimum compound to take into multiple dose human studies,” said Graham Allaway, Panacos' president and COO.