T-20, did anybody hear about this medication?

[azprince]

I was googling medications and found an article in the Guardian about this drug ...

[Inchlingblue]

T-20 is Fuzeon (Enfuvirtide)

From aidsmeds.com:

What is the most important information I should know about Fuzeon?
Fuzeon is a fusion inhibitor being manufactured by Trimeris and Hoffmann-La Roche. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March, 2003. Fuzeon is approved for HIV-positive people who have tried other anti-HIV drugs in the past and are unable to keep their viral loads undetectable using drugs that are currently available. It has not yet been approved for HIV-positive people who are starting anti-HIV drug treatment for the first time.
 
Fuzeon must be used in combination with other anti-HIV drugs.

What is Fuzeon?
Fuzeon is an anti-HIV medication. It is in a category of HIV medicines called fusion inhibitors, or more broadly, entry inhibitors.
 
Fuzeon binds to a protein on HIV's surface called gp41. Once it does this, HIV cannot successfully bind with the surface of T-cells, thus preventing the virus from infecting healthy cells.
 
Fuzeon will most likely need to be used in combination with other anti-HIV drugs.


LINKS:

http://www.aidsmeds.com/archive/Fuzeon_1628.shtml

http://www.thebody.com/index/treat/t20.html

[Miss Philicia]

Fuzeon is a remarkably potent HIV medication, but it's also the most expensive and due to the injection process isn't going to be prescribed generally except for a patient that has exhausted all other options and has multiple resistance issues.  Hence this medication is/was used for those of us, myself included, that due to pre-HAART regimens (i.e. before ~1996) our resistance profiles are very complicated.

It took me 13 years of being on HIV meds to get my viral load undetectable, and this was done with Fuzeon.  As soon as newer meds like Isentress and Selzentry became available at the end of 2007 everyone I personally know that was on Fuzeon got off of it.  If I ever have to go back on it though I'll do it, but then I tend to complain less about these things than the one-pill-a-day fetishists.