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CNN Live Today
15th Anniversary of AZT
Aired March 19, 2002 - 10:27 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hard to believe we are marking a medical milestone this morning. It's the 15th anniversary of AZT, the first effective drug used in the treatment of AIDS. Looking back, doctors noticed the spread of a rare cancer in gay men back in 1981. Scientists began studying AZT as a possible treatment, and in 1982, the term aids was created, standing for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. That year, 600 patients died from AIDS. In 1987, the drug AZT was approved by FDA, and over the years, thousands of patients showed an improvement taking the drug.
The next leap forward was in 1996 when the FDA approved the so- called AIDS cocktail therapy, that includes the use of AZT.
AZT is manufactured by GlaxcoSmithKline. Dr. Doug Manion is the vice president of HIV clinical development at that company, and he is with us now from Orlando to talk about the future of AIDS treatment.
Good morning, doctor.
DR. DOUG MANION, GLAXOSMITHKLINE: Good morning, Carol.
LIN: It's hard to believe that it's 15 years. Has your company actually tracked some of the earliest patients, the first patients, to see how they're doing?
MANION: I don't believe that they have been doing that actively of late. Obviously. those participating in clinical trials initially were followed through their full course of treatment.
LIN: It's remarkable, though, when you think and actually see pictures and talk to people who have been treated with AZT or these drug cocktails, the quality of life that they now live. Just for example today, in "USA Today," there is a photograph of a guy, 59 years old, who thought he was on death's door, and now, he's running marathons.
MANION: It's been absolutely fantastic, and AZT really created the beachhead for pharmical therapeutics against this horrible disease. And prior to 1987, it was formally seen as a death sentence, and in fact, Especially with the advent of the protease inhibitors in other classes, complementary to drugs like AZT, patients now have a good very chance at a normal lifespan with this disease.
LIN: But it's not a cure, nor do you actually believe there will ever be a cure for AIDS, why?
MANION: This is a really cagey pathogen, and in fact, once you are infected, the virus' genomic material, its DNA, actually gets incorporated into your own chromosomes. So in fact eradicating the virus from the host cells would be extremely difficult, although we continue to be hopeful that we can find ways, especially through inciting the host immune system to assist us, that we could eventually eradicate HIV. But for now, our two best tools are education against acquisition of HIV, as well as drug cocktails, including those with AZT.
LIN: Very quickly, in terms of what the status of the drug cocktails then, what is the next generation of drug therapies?
MANION: Well, the big challenge for us is the fact that the HIV virus has an uncanny ability to mutate, to develop resistance to currently available drugs. So we need to stay one step ahead of the virus. And so companies like GSK have are performing research, and second-generation compounds, as well as looking at novel targets, in the life cycle of HIV, immuno-modulating drugs, as I mentioned before, and finally, looking at vaccines, both therapeutic and prophylactic, which we think will ultimately be the road that we'll have to take to stem the tide of this disease.
LIN: Prophylactic vaccines, is that the way it sounds? Are you saying that treatment can be used -- forgive my ignorance, but it's sounds like treatment could be used through, say, condoms?
MANION: No, by prophylactic, we mean vaccines that are used to prevent acquisition of infection, as opposed to vaccines that actually can be used after the person is infected to actually assist drugs in preventing replication of the virus.
LIN: All right, thank you very much, Dr. Doug Manion. Congratulations on this 15th anniversary. We look forward to more and continuing therapies there.
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