Starpharma Holdings Limited commented on results of a study which showed that men were three times more likely to contract HIV from their female partners if the women also had bacterial vaginosis (BV) in the three months before the men became infected.
The findings were reported at the International HIV/AIDS Conference in Rome by researchers led by Professor Craig Cohen from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, University of California, San Francisco.
This study is the first to demonstrate an association between BV in HIV infected female partners and their risk of HIV transmission to their male partners.
Several previous studies have demonstrated an increased risk of HIV acquisition in females with BV, including one study that indicated more than 30% of HIV infections in women could be prevented if BV was successfully treated.
Starpharma CEO Jackie Fairley said: “This very interesting finding is relevant to Starpharma’s bacterial vaginosis programme for VivaGel, both for acute treatment and also for the important prevention of recurrence application. No doubt this finding will further increase interest in bacterial vaginosis, both for consumers and in a public health sense.”
“Professor Craig Cohen has previously led a clinical study of Starpharma’s VivaGel, and we congratulate him and his team on this important finding.”
VivaGel was recently shown in a phase 2 study to successfully treat BV and planning for phase 3 studies is underway. An additional phase 2 study is anticipated to commence in Q3 2011 to investigate VivaGel for prevention of recurrence of BV.
Starpharma Holdings Limited is a world leader in the development of dendrimer technology for pharmaceutical, life-science and other applications. SPL has two operating companies, Starpharma Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia and DNT, Inc in the USA. Products based on SPL’s dendrimer technology are already on the market in the form of diagnostic elements and laboratory reagents through licence arrangements with partners including Siemens and Merck KgaA.