4th International Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology of HIV Therapy, 27-29 March 2003, Cannes, France

1 May 2003. Related: Conference reports, PK and drug interactions, PK Workshop 4th Cannes 2003, Conference index.

Stephen Taylor, for HIV i-Base

The fourth in this annual series of workshops returned to Europe, after having made its first appearance in the USA last year.

This spring meeting marks one of the year’s highlights for those interested in HIV Pharmacology and is usually a perfect forum to generate active research discussions. This year approximately 150 delegates composed of HIV clinicians, pharmacists, researchers, activists and industry travelled to the French Riviera, to share the latest data concerning HIV pharmacology.

Following the presentation of the 2NN study at the Retrovirus conference earlier this year participants were particularly eager to hear of any drug concentration response or toxicity relationships pertaining to the NNRTIs and whether therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of these agents will be of potential benefit. Several papers attempted to shed some light on the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) relationships of the NNRTIs.

These reports cannot hope to cover the wealth of papers presented at this workshop (the abstracts will shortly be posted on HIV-Pharmacology.com) but instead cover some of the papers with most potential clinical relevance presented at the meeting. These include:

• Can low NVP plasma concentrations explain the results seen in the EFV and NVP containing arms of the NARVAL study?

• Up to one third of patients receiving standard doses of NNRTIs may be being underdosed

• Nelfinavir concentrations are significantly higher in HIV/HCV co-infected patients with cirrhosis

• Less diarrhoea and bioequivalence with the new nelfinavir 625mg tablet

• The potential for probenecid to have a serious interaction with HIV-1 protease inhibitors

• PK studies reveal significant sex/gender differences

• Pregnancy-related PK studies

• New test to measure intracellular levels of nucleosides

• Case studies for therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM)

• Launch of guide to the use of drug level monitoring

This year’s workshop provided clinicians and pharmacists with much to digest and much new data that has potentially important clinical implications. The meeting continues to provide an important forum in which to present both basic science research as well as pharmacologically driven studies. It is likely only to grow in importance within the HIV calendar.

Full content of the meeting including poster and abstracts, together with a conference report will be available at:
http://www.HIVpharmacology.com