The HIV Prognosis Programme: Virochip®

 

The development of resistance to antivirals is the main cause of treatment failure in HIV/AIDS therapy. The HIV's extremely high mutation rate makes HIV carriers to have a diverse population of HIV viruses, some of which are by chance resistant to antiviral drugs. These drugs do not induce resistance themselves, but induce a strong selective pressure in this viral population. Since each infected person develops resistant particles among his/her viral population, antiviral treatment will gradually loose efectivity and the antiviral therapy will have to be re-adjusted.

 

Virochip® is a microarray-based prognostic tool which allows clinicians to profile resistant HIV viral populations in a patient. Its aim is to improve treatment, reduce side effects and save treatment costs.

 

 

Virochip® has several advantages, including:

 

• High sensitivity
• Fast sample processing
• Identification and quantification of minoritary viral populations
• Accurate genotyping
• Easy to update platform
  

 

Biotherapix has established collaborations with several companies and research centres for the development of Virochip®. This diagnostics system is currently under validation with clinical samples using prototype Virochip v4.0.