CytoDyn Inc. announced that a research paper entitled “Leronlimab (PRO 140) activity against 4-class drug resistant HIV-1 from Heavily Treatment Experienced Subjects” has been accepted, peer reviewed and is available as a journal pre-proof on ScienceDirect. ScienceDirect provides access to a large bibliographic database of scientific and medical publications of the Dutch publisher Elsevier. This article is available for purchase from Elsevier through a link on CytoDyn's website: This project was a collaborative effort among scientists and researchers from: University of Milan, Milan, Italy, University of Siena, Siena, Italy, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy, San Raffaele Vita-Salute University, Milan, Italy, Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, Rome, Italy, Azienda Ospedaliera San Paolo, Milan, Italy, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy; 8 Santa Maria Annunziata Hospital, Florence, Italy; 9 University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.

The study was conducted as an in-vitro study of 25 HIV-1-infected patients harboring a documented 4-class drug-resistance nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (“NRTIs”), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (“NNRTIs”), protease inhibitors (“PIs”), and integrase strand transfer inhibitors (“INSTIs”) enrolled in the Italian PRESTIGIO Registry. Significant findings from the study and observations from the authors include: Leronlimab maintained full activity in the presence of extensive resistance to the four main antiviral classes. Leronlimab IC50 did not appear significantly altered by previous or current exposure to maraviroc.

In vitro, leronlimab and maraviroc have been reported to have synergistic activity, further corroborating the different mechanism of the two drugs despite the same CCR5 target. In vitro susceptibility to leronlimab is not affected by extensive drug resistance and exposure to maraviroc. Leronlimab may have some advantages over maraviroc as a clinically valuable CCR5 antagonist, including lower toxicity, less drug-drug interaction issue and less frequent dosing.

Leronlimab can play a key role in subjects with very limited therapeutic options and CCR5-tropic virus.