August 9, 2006

 

UK researchers to develop Resistance-proof bird flu drug

 

 

A new bird flu drug that would not allow viruses to develop resistance would begin clinical trials within the next three years.

 

Dr Andrew Watts from the University of Bath (UK) and Dr Jennifer McKimm-Breschkin from CSIRO (Australia) have been awarded over GBP408,000 (US$778,728)  from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to develop a new class of inhibitor they have discovered into a new kind of flu treatment.

 

The need for such a drug has become more urgent as research indicated that viruses have the ability to mutate quickly to develop resistance to current treatments.

 

Both Tamiflu and Relenza, the two drugs favoured for preventing bird flu, are inherently susceptible to resistance.

 

A report in the New England Journal of Medicine in December 2005 said that from a group of eight Vietnamese bird flu patients treated with Tamiflu, two showed initial signs of recovery before eventually dying. This suggests that the virus was able to rapidly develop resistance to the drug.

 

In a separate study in Japan, the virus developed resistance in one in six children treated with Tamiflu for ordinary forms of flu.

 

Although acting upon the same target as Tamiflu, the new drug targets specific parts of the virus that are unable to mutate, which would make it impossible for the virus to develop resistance.

 

Tamiflu and Relenza, however, would still remain the best defences against a flu pandemic, but there is a need to work on alternatives to overcome the resistance problem, said Dr Andrew Watts from the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of Bath.

 

The researchers aim to produce a likely drug candidate within the three year period, she said. However, it may be up to 15 years before the commercial version would be available.

 

CSIRO was instrumental in developing the world's first anti-flu drug effective against all strains of flu. Dr McKimm-Breschkin was part of the team that developed Relenza. She has also carried out much of the research on bird flu drug resistance.