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MEDIA CENTER Population Council’s AIDS Prevention Product Development Gets Boost from New Agreement NEW YORK (26 September 2003) — The Population Council announced an agreement that effectively launches work on the Council’s next-generation microbicide. Formulated as creams or gels, microbicides would substantially reduce the transmission of HIV and possibly other sexually transmitted infections. The pharmaceutical manufacturer Medivir has licensed MIV-150, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor, to the Council. Recent laboratory tests have shown that the combination of Carraguard®, the Council’s lead candidate microbicide, and MIV-150 may be more effective in attacking multiple strains of HIV than Carraguard alone. There are four known types of HIV, and new strains are evolving. The Population Council has begun the laboratory and clinical testing that is required to determine safety, acceptability, and effectiveness before medical products are approved for use. The Council has established that MIV-150 is compatible and stable in combination with Carraguard and that it enhances the efficacy of Carraguard in preventing HIV infection in laboratory experiments. The combination of the toxicology, safety, and tolerability research already conducted on MIV-150 and the Council’s experience with reproductive health product development and clinical trial management may expedite the testing of this next-generation microbicide. In addition to launching tests for the enhanced version of Carraguard, the Population Council plans to continue moving its existing microbicide formulation through clinical trials. In the research pipeline since 1994, Carraguard has been shown to be effective in blocking infection by a number of sexually transmitted pathogens including HIV in laboratory and animal studies and to be safe and acceptable to women in clinical trials. “The time between product concept and product availability is very long,” notes Population Council Vice President Elof Johansson. “But AIDS is already killing thousands of people every day. We must continue to evaluate promising products like the original Carraguard formula while simultaneously searching for newer, potentially even more beneficial solutions for the future. This agreement may be a critical step in this race to save millions of lives.” The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, nongovernmental research organization that seeks to improve the well-being and reproductive health of current and future generations around the world and to help achieve a humane, equitable, and sustainable balance between people and resources. The Council conducts biomedical, social science, and public health research and helps build research capacities in developing countries. Established in 1952, the Council is governed by an international board of trustees. Its New York headquarters supports a global network of regional and country offices. The Medivir Group is an innovative, specialist research corporation that develops new pharmaceutical compounds based on proteases and polymerases as target enzymes. The company is located in Huddinge, Sweden and Cambridge, UK. The group comprised Medivir AB, the subsidiaries Medivir UK Ltd. and the CCS group until 1 July 2003, after this date the CCS group is owned by Segulah II L.P. Medivir has been quoted on the Stockholm Stock Exchange since 1996 and on the Attract 40 list since 1 July 2003. ### Media contacts
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