In 2016, HIV continued to confound patients, physicians, and researchers while resulting in one million deaths due to AIDS-related illness worldwide. Additionally, there were 36.7 million people living with HIV and 1.8 million new HIV infections reported. HIV mutational ability generally inactivates the immune system leading to lethal virulence.

As a result of a collaboration between Sanofi and the United States National Institutes of Health, research scientists have developed a revolutionary tri-specific antibody designed to target three separate components of HIV, disrupting resistance mechanisms that render accepted therapeutic paradigms ineffective.

Preliminary studies reveal that in twenty-four monkeys treated with the antibody and then infected with HIV, no test subjects progressed to developing symptoms or advanced disease. Beginning in 2018, the tri-specific antibody will be tested in humans.

Reference:

Xu L, Pegu A, Rao E, Doria-Rose N, Beninga J, McKee K, Lord DM, Wei RR, Deng G, Louder M, Schmidt SD, Mankoff Z, Wu L, Asokan M, Beil C, Lange C, Leuschner WD, Kruip J, Sendak R, Do Kwon Y, Zhou T, Chen X, Bailer RT, Wang K, Choe M, Tartaglia LJ, Barouch DH, O’Dell S, Todd JP, Burton DR, Roederer M, Connors M, Koup RA, Kwong PD, Yang ZY, Mascola JR, Nabel GJ. Trispecific broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies mediate potent SHIV protection in macaques. Science. 2017 Sep 20. pii: eaan8630. doi: 10.1126/science.aan8630. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 28931639.