New anti-AIDS drug aimed at the global market

Shanghai Target Drug Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Australia's Avexa Limited have signed an agreement on international cooperation in Shanghai to promote follow-up studies of a new entry-inhibitor HIV drug, TD0232.

According to the agreement, China has the intellectual property rights to the drug, but will share the rights to any new intelligence that emerges during follow-up research and development. It also has full manufacturing and distribution rights to the drug in China, (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions). Avexa is bearing the costs of the study, and has full rights to markets outside China.

In 2003, scientists discovered a number of drug molecules that they believed capable of fighting HIV and applied for an international patent. In June 2003, the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry pooled their knowledge of the molecule. They entered an agreement with Shanghai Fudan-Zhangjiang Bio-Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to establish the Shanghai Target Drug Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to promote follow-up study of the new drug. Preclinical trials have revealed that the drug is equally as effective as other, similar types of drugs available.