HIV drugs committee
- History and Purpose:
The HIV Drugs Committee at IATDMCT was created in 2000 under the
leadership of Dr. Steven Soldin, one of the leading experts in the field of the
laboratory expertise in the TDM of antiretroviral drugs. The Purpose of the committee is to promote clinical application of the TDM of
antiretroviral therapy and the development of the laboratory assays for the
determination of the concentrations of antiretroviral drugs in different body
fluids and tissues.
- The current Members of the HIV Drugs Committee include:
1. Chair
Natella Rakhmanina, MD, AAHIVS
Associate Professor, Program Director, Special Immunology
Children's National Medical Center
The George Washington University
Washington, DC, USA
2. Vice-Chair
Michael Neely, MD
Assistant Professor
Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA, USA
3. Dr. Edgar P Spencer (New Member)
Principal Clinical Scientist
Medical Toxicology Laboratory
St Thomas' Hospital, London, UK
4. Denise McKeown, Msci. (New Member)
Senior Analyst
St. George's University of London
London, UK
5. Dr. Mario Regazzi
Head of the Clinical Pharmacokinetic
Laboratory,
Foundation IRCCS Policlinico San
Matteo
Pavia, Italy
6. Kenneth C. Kasper, Ph.D. (New Member)
Executive Director, Quality and Regulatory Affairs
ARK Diagnostics, Inc.
Sunnyvale, CA, USA
7. Laure Elens, Ph.D. (New Member)
Unité de Toxicologie industrielle et
de médecine du travail
UCL-Faculté de Médecine
Bruxelles, Belgium
8. David Colantonio, PhD, DABCC (New
Member)
Clinical Biochemist, Dept of Paediatric Laboratory
Medicine
Assistant Professor, University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
9. Steven Soldin, PhD
Adjunct Professor, Pharmacology
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
10. Amitava Dasgupta, Ph.D
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston
Houston, TX, USA
The HIV Drug Committee meeting took place on October 6th 2009 and was aimed at reviewing the strategic plan for the future development:
1. The members of the HIV Drug Committee have welcomed new members.
2. Prior to the meeting in October, the Committee Chair distributed to the members the questionnaire asking to summarize their work related to the HIV therapeutics, the list of the HIV related publications and presentations in previous 2 years, areas of interest in HIV therapeutics, and established collaborative projects in HIV therapeutics. During the meeting the members have revised the areas of common research and clinical interests.
3. The members of the Committee recognized the current limitations of the universal application of the TDM in the therapy of HIV infection and discussed the venues (such as stronger virological expertise and web based consultancy on the interpretation of the TDM results for the practitioners) that can potentially enhance the application of TDM in HIV therapy.
4. Through joint review the committee has drafted the program of future development. This Strategic Program includes: a) development of joint research protocols within the group (the goal to have two new projects established within 2 years); b) creation of the joint research database (the Committee will exchange the drug based database for the currently applied assays and clinical and research applications); c) development of updated guidelines for the TDM of antiretroviral therapy of HIV infection in collaboration with existing group of authors; d) development of virological expertise through collaboration with established virology expert groups in HIV resistance such as Stanford University and European Collaborators; e) collaboration on development of the population PK models for multi drug antiretroviral therapy; f) eventual creation of the IATDMCT web based TDM consultancy program for HIV practitioners.
5. The Committee has decided to establish a new working liaison with international organization on HIV treatment (particularly with an Organizing Committee of the HIV Clinical Pharmacology Workshops). The ultimate goal of this international collaboration is to update the guidelines on the application of TDM for optimization of treatment of HIV infection and to develop the IATDMCT position statement on the TDM of antiretroviral therapy.
6. The committee has also developed the proposal to solicit funds and resources in order to adopt a TDM laboratory in the resources-limited settings for the research, methodology and potentially financial support of TDM of antiretroviral therapy.
- Committee Initiatives for 2010
1. The main HIV Drugs Committee initiative for the 2010 is the new collaboration with an Organizing Committee of the HIV Clinical Pharmacology Workshop on updating the HIV TDM Guidelines published in 2006, for eventual publication in the journal of the IATDMCT "Therapeutic Drug Monitoring". This collaboration, which will be led by Dr. Rakhmanina, will be discussed at the 11th International Workshop on Clinical Pharmacology of HIV Therapy in Sorrento, Italy in April 2010. The participation of well recognized experts of HIV TDM will involve Drs. Charles Flexner, David Burger, and Charles La Porte. We anticipate the final agreement on the update of the guidelines to be reached in April and the preparation of the guidelines to start in June 2010. The anticipated time of the submission of the guidelines to TDM is November 2010.
2. The second HIV Drugs Committee initiative for the 2010 is the creation of the joint research database: the Committee will exchange the drug based database for the currently applied assays and clinical and research applications. The Committee expects to have this task completed by September 2010.
3. Finally, the third goal of the Committee for 2010 involves the development of joint research protocol within the group. We anticipate one collaborative project with a minimum of two sites representative of IATDMCT HIV Drugs Committee members to be developed by the December 2010.
