 | | | |  | fast facts: hiv/aids - audio |
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| | Quest For a Cure | | | bbc radio documentary | | Five years ago, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, agreed to let the BBC follow their work as they develop a new treatment for HIV/Aids.
This unprecedented access gives an insight into the development of a new drug, from the initial lab trials to large-scale clinical testing.
In this two-part series, Peter Day records the diary of a drug and tells a story that involves hundreds of people, years of scientific effort and hundreds of millions of pounds. | | | Part One | | | | | Peter Day visits a laboratory in Sandwich, southern England, Pfizer's largest facility outside the US.
He learns the hopes and fears of the dedicated scientists who have already spent 18 years and millions of US dollars to select and develop a new approach to treating HIV/Aids - but there is still no guarantee it will work on humans.
The pace has quickened as the scientists have identified a chemical that might fight HIV/Aids. However, there is also a whole new set of hurdles that they will have to overcome.
| | | Part Two | | | Peter Day continues to monitor the expensive process of developing a drug that may never reach the market place.
Testing has revealed that the chemical compound Pfizer scientists are working on could be a viable treatment for HIV/Aids. It has been successfully tried on animals and the drug is now ready to be tested out for safety on a few healthy human volunteers.
Will this potential treatment, Maraviroc, survive the process to become another weapon in the battle against the disease? Or will it, like most drug candidates, fail?
| | | | from bbc documentary archives: first broadcast april 2006 |
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