Coming therapies: amprenavir.

Amprenavir is a new peptidomimetic inhibitor of the HIV protease enzyme. Amprenavir has a twice daily dosing schedule and can be administered with or without food making it a convenient dosing regimen among the protease inhibitors (PIs). It is currently being investigated in combination with various nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) and initial results are promising. Amprenavir may also be useful for salvage therapy in patients failing PI-containing regimens as little cross-resistance has been observed so far with nelfinavir, indinavir or saquinavir. However, amprenavir resistant strains show cross-resistance with ritonavir. Clinical evidence indicates amprenavir is generally well tolerated. However, there is little information to date regarding the ability of amprenavir to cause lipodystrophy or other disturbances of lipid metabolism.