It's Time to Consider Patients From Vulnerable Populations

Brinda Emu, MD, Yale University explained that as far as next steps, it's an exciting time when the sponsors submit results to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seek approval for this patient population (those with highly drug resistant virus). "Im excited about these results, and if it works in this very drug resistant population, thinking about studying how it may work in those who have such drug resistant virus would be exciting to see; we don't have that data yet, but hopefully they will develop it in that way as well," said Emu.

"We've done a really good job of developing medicines to get that virus under control. I think what's sort of important for our community now is to very carefully look at what the unmet needs are," said Emu. Emu believes researchers need to shift their focus on vulnerable populations: those that don't have access to medicines, those that for one reason or another have very resistant viruses, or those that suffer non-HIV related diseases, because of chronic viral infection.