ViroLogic and Merck Enter Agreement to Sponsor HIV Drug Resistance Education
Programs
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sep 14, 2000 (BW HealthWire) --
-- Series of Meetings Will Provide Latest Information on Benefits of
HIV Drug Resistance Testing --
ViroLogic, Inc. (NASDAQ: VLGC) today announced an agreement with Merck & Co.,
Inc. (NYSE: MRK) to jointly develop and execute educational programs on the
utility of HIV drug resistance testing for physicians across the nation.
ViroLogic and Merck will conduct a series of physician education meetings that
will feature prominent researchers and clinicians on HIV therapy and drug
resistance, and will educate physicians about the latest scientific and clinical
data in the field.
"Drug resistance testing is becoming the standard of care in HIV therapy
management, and we expect that physicians will seek additional information on
the role of these tests in guiding therapy," said Dr. Nicholas Hellmann, Vice
President of Clinical Research at ViroLogic, which markets the PhenoSense(TM)
HIV drug resistance test. "These educational programs will facilitate better
physician understanding of the use of drug resistance testing to design
individualized treatment regimens for patients."
So far this year, both the Department of Health and Human Services and the
International AIDS Society-USA have issued guidelines recommending the use of
drug resistance testing in the routine care of HIV patients.
In addition, ViroLogic and Merck will collaborate to educate physicians on the
use of resistance testing in guiding boosted protease inhibitor (PI) combination
therapy. Numerous investigators are currently evaluating the clinical effects of
boosted PI combinations, as recent studies have shown that these combinations
provide higher drug levels of PIs in treatment experienced patients. As part of
the collaboration, the two companies will develop a methodology to report
boosted PI combinations on ViroLogic's PhenoSense(TM) HIV test reports.
About ViroLogic
ViroLogic is a biotechnology company developing and marketing innovative
products to guide and improve treatment of viral diseases. The Company's
proprietary technology, called PhenoSense(TM), tests for drug resistance and
susceptibility in viruses that cause serious diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis B
and hepatitis C.
ViroLogic's first product, PhenoSense HIV, is a test that directly and
quantitatively measures resistance of a patient's HIV to antiviral drugs. The
test results provide physicians with important information to help select
appropriate drugs for their HIV patients. The Company is also developing
PhenoSense products for other viral diseases and intends to use the results of
its PhenoSense tests and other clinical data to develop its Therapy Guidance
System(TM) (TGS(TM)), an interactive database to help physicians guide patient
therapy.
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking. These
forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and other
factors, which may cause actual results to differ materially from the
anticipated results or other expectations expressed in such forward-looking
statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to,
whether PhenoSense(TM) testing will achieve market acceptance, whether payers
will authorize reimbursement for our products, whether we will be able to expand
our sales and marketing capabilities, whether we encounter problems or delays in
automating our process, whether we successfully introduce new products using our
PhenoSense(TM) technology, whether intellectual property underlying our
PhenoSense(TM) technology is adequate, whether we are able to build brand
loyalty, and other risks and uncertainties detailed in our final Prospectus that
is part of our Registration Statement on Form S-1, as declared effective by the
SEC on May 1, 2000 (File No. 333-30896).
CONTACT: ViroLogic, Inc.
Sidney Ho, Director of Public Affairs
(650) 635-1100, Ext. 206
sho@virologic.com
virologic.com |
