Pharmaceutical Companies Agree To Continue Research Into Cardiac, Metabolic Complications Associated With Antiretroviral Drugs
Pharmaceutical companies have agreed to continue to fund for at least one additional year research regarding a possible association between antiretroviral drugs and cardiac and metabolic complications in HIV-positive patients, an AIDS expert said Monday, Reuters Health reports. The announcement that the companies would continue to fund the research came after several AIDS advocacy groups last month at the Sixth International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection in Glasgow, Scotland, voiced concern that the trials would end before researchers could gather sufficient data. AIDS advocates said that some patients may have to be followed for "decades" to learn the long-term risks of HIV treatment. The European AIDS Treatment Group had expressed its concerns to the Steering Committee on the Metabolic Complications of Highly Active Antiretroviral Treatment, an international committee made up of company representatives, researchers and drug regulators formed to evaluate the drugs' potential long-term side effects. Research to examine the association between antiretroviral drugs and metabolic complications began in 1999 after the Steering Committee was formed at the request of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (Woodman, Reuters Health, 12/16).
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