One-dose drug to fight flu

A New antiviral drug requiring only one dose is close to reaching the market, after Australian developer Biota announced successful trials in Asia.

The drug - laninamivir - is a potential successor to the firm's Relenza, which along with Tamiflu is taken for swine flu.

The new drug can be taken once to treat flu, or weekly as a preventative. The alternative drugs must be taken every day.

Biota managing director Peter Cook said commercial availability was ''within sight'', after trials in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea proved it safe and effective. Trials on adults and children found a single dose worked just as well to rid patients of the flu as taking Tamiflu twice a day for five days.

In children, the drug got rid of the illness more quickly than the Tamiflu regimen.

Biota's partner Daiichi Sankyo will apply to Japanese authorities to manufacture and market the drug next year.

However, before Biota can get market approval in the US and Australia, it must complete more trials that compare its performance with a placebo.

Mr Cook said the single dose meant national stockpiles against flu pandemics would be easier to build - and it could ensure patients completed a course of antivirals. He said it was effective against seasonal, avian and swine flu strains.

Increasing the range of antiviral drugs would slow the spread of resistant strains of influenza. Several strains of seasonal flu have already proven resistant to Tamiflu, and there are early signs in laboratory tests of some resistance to Relenza.

Like Relenza, the new drug is taken with an inhaler device, which restricts its use in children. Like Relenza and Tamiflu, the new drug works by preventing the spread of viruses from the lungs to elsewhere in the body.

Source : www.theage.com.au