Aethlon Medical Inc., the US-based company involved in the development of viral filtration devices to treat HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis-C (HCV), will start its HIV and Hepatitis-C clinical trials in India next month. Qualtran LLC, a contract research organization (CRO) will manage the phase II trials for Aethlon Medical Inc. in India. The trials will be for Hemopurifier, a viral filtration device to treat HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis-C (HCV), developed by Aethlon Medical Inc recently.

It is known that the Apollo Hospital, New Delhi has been retained as a sponsor site for Aethlon's forthcoming clinical trials and Dr. Vijay Kher, Senior Consultant of Nephrology at Apollo Hospital will be the Principal Investigator for the trial. “If the trials are found successful, the products will be launched by next year, globally,” Sunil Sawhney, managing director, Qualtran and the former director of Boston Scientific India told Pharmabiz.

The Hemopurifier is designed to rapidly reduce the presence of infectious disease and toxins in the body. It converges the established scientific principals of affinity chromatography and haemodialysis as a means to augment the immune response of clearing viruses and toxins from the blood before cell and organ infection can occur.

The Hemopurifier is essentially a cartridge with holes large enough to allow viruses and toxins to pass through, but small enough to prevent the needed components of blood from leaving. A key part of the device is that the viruses and toxins are captured in a matrix that prevents them from escaping back into the body.

According to the studies, 5.1 million individuals in India were infected with HIV in 2004, a ten-fold increase over the last decade. It is projected that the number of HIV-infected citizens in India could increase to 20-25 million by 2010.