GlaxoSmithKline sponsors Vertibrae's HIVresistanceWeb
Under the terms of the agreement, the unrestricted educational grant will help HIVresistanceWeb to continue its aim of helping HIV care providers and investigators by offering an accessible source of new information, practical knowledge and opinion, regarding the issues surrounding antiretroviral drug resistance.
"Through its products and research, GlaxoSmithKline has proven its dedication to improving HIV treatment," said Dean Beals, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Vertibrae. "We are extremely pleased to be partnering with such an industry leader to carry on Vertibrae's tradition of evaluating the latest news and developments to distill the essential information that medical professionals need in their everyday clinical practices."
"More important than expanding our Internet activity, supporting HIVresistanceWeb allows GlaxoSmithKline to further society's ultimate goal of control of HIV infection," said Steve Bertini, Product Manager at GlaxoSmithKline. "By sponsoring such a valuable resource that reaches the majority of the online HIV treatment community, we are proud to help HIV care providers obtain the information they need to make better clinical decisions."
According to the partnering companies, the HIVresistanceWeb Board of Directors will retain full control over the site's content. HIVresistanceWeb members also will be able to link directly to GlaxoSmithKline's Treat HIV professional portal (treathiv.com) where they will be able to obtain product-specific information and patient education materials. In return, Treat HIV visitors will be able to link directly to HIVresistanceWeb.
"We are quite enthusiastic about the new arrangement, which will allow us to provide up-to-date, unbiased information to clinicians and researchers in a timely manner," said Brian Conway, Managing Director of the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics of the University of British Columbia, and Co-Chair of the HIVresistanceWeb Board of Advisors. "By employing an interactive, web-based approach, we are able to respond to users' clinical informational needs in a unique manner."
In addition, HIVresistanceWeb also announced the launch of their new drug and mutation data matrices. The compendiums of drug- and mutation-specific information are designed to help practicing HIV physicians better understand results of genotypic analysis tests for HIV drug resistance and related information.
"Genotypic analysis of a patient's HIV strain identifies viral mutations that can lead to antiretroviral drug resistance and cross-resistance between the drug classes. Recent clinical data indicate that by guiding pharmaceutical treatment decisions, genotypic analysis may help to improve clinical outcomes," said Robert Shafer, M.D., of the Center for AIDS Research, Stanford University Medical Center, and member of the HIVresistanceWeb Board of Advisors. "The HIVresistanceWeb drug and mutation
data matrices were devised as a tool to help edify physicians by improving their basic understanding of drug resistance in this field."