A simple, fast, affordable test developed by a Boston-based MassChallenge finalist is able to determine which drugs HIV is resistant to, saving money and lives.
Using a technology called Pan Degenerate Amplification and Adaptation, Aldatu Biosciences allows doctors to match patients with drugs the HIV won't be resistant to, based on the genetics of the virus.
"If resistance is present, switching people to effective drugs improves quality of life and saves money by reducing the risk of new infections," Aldatu CEO David Raiser said. "If resistance is not present, money is saved by not switching patients to more expensive drugs unnecessarily. There are clear economic and public health benefits to performing the test, regardless of the result."
Aldatu's test produces results in about two hours, compared to roughly two days for current tests, Raiser said, and the price is $99, about one-third the cost of other tests.
"Ours is a simple 'sample in/answer out' format, whereas the current tests have multiple steps and require several pieces of equipment," he said.
Raiser and co-founder Iain MacLeod, Aldatu's chief scientific officer, plan to bring their test first to Botswana, where one in four adults has HIV and about 10 percent of those receiving treatment don't respond to it, but the price of the prevailing drug-resistance test prevents most doctors from using it.
"Presently, (doctors) give everyone the same drugs and wait for them to fail to see if they're resistant to the drugs," Raiser said.
If they are, they are put on a second line of drugs, which typically costs four times as much as the first, he said. And if they're resistant to that, they're put on a third line, which can cost 15 times as much.
"In some cases, people are being switched to a second or third line of drugs because doctors don't realize the virus isn't resistant; the patients just aren't taking their meds correctly," Raiser said.
"There's the ethical question of leaving people on ineffective drugs when their quality of life is poor and they're at risk of infecting other people with drug-resistant HIV," he said.
There is also the economic question, one that countries around the world are wrestling with.
"What happens in Botswana can and will impact what happens in the U.S.," said John Hallinan, chief business officer at the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council. "What's happening is a drain on the entire global health system. We think (Aldatu) has a very promising technology."
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