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Biotech / Medical : Agouron Pharmaceuticals (AGPH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ALL who wrote (5015)	7/29/1998 11:58:00 AM
From: Izzy	Respond to of 6136

ALL, as Rick and I alluded to several posts ago (? few mos ago), and from what I know, AGPH is attempting some modification of Viracept (details not known). I think that Viracept can safely be given BID but, for most drugs, it is difficult to maintain a constant therapeutic blood level extending past 8 hrs. But cardiac, hypertensive, etc. patients readily take their medications TID/QID without major problems altho' some drugs can now be taken qd (one time daily). Regarding any difficulty taking HIV drugs, perhaps some of the SI posters (eg., BriBear, Cherry Grove) can give some insight. PS: Some people were concerned about high Viracept inventories. Just look at the problems with Norvir. How could an M.D. prescribe this drug when it is not even known if it will be acceptable/available? Really safer to just stay with Viracept, IMO.

To: ALL who wrote (5015)	7/29/1998 12:05:00 PM
From: tommysdad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6136

One big pill. A worthy idea, but it usually doesn't work, for many reasons. Here are a few (all generic, not necessarily applicable to Viracept). Taking it: ever try to take a really big pill? It's hard to do. The gag reflex and all. Absorption: one big pill has less surface area than several small ones, thus the time to "free up" the drug from the incipients is longer. In addition, PI's aren't the most stable of molecules: the rate of dissolution is probably key, and more easily controlled with several pills. Pharmacokinetics: it is not at all uncommon to see better systemic exposure from, say, 50 mg 3 times a day than from 100 mg twice a day. In other words, less drug taken more frequently actually results in more drug actually finding it's way to the site of action. Very common. So even if one took one big pill twice a day, the drug levels right before the next dose may be so low as to let the genie (HIV) out of the bottle (being controlled by drug). So, are you the guy everyone posts to all the time ("To all:") . . .