Myriad Pharmaceuticals announced last week that it will suspend further development of its anti-HIV drug, MPC-4326, and will instead focus on developing anti-cancer drugs. The company attributed the change to strategic and business reasons.

Patrick Burke, Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at Myriad Pharmaceuticals, stated in an interview with The AIDS Beacon that Myriad is currently looking for a partner to advance MPC-4326 and an additional novel HIV drug. This partner would then acquire rights to advance the drugs further.

Myriad’s Phase 2 clinical trial into the efficacy…

On Thursday, Myriad Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the results of two clinical studies, which revealed findings about a new HIV drug called MPC-4326 (bevirimat dimeglumine).

MPC-4326 is a candidate antiretroviral drug with a unique mechanism of action. It completed a phase 2a clinical trial in 2008, and will undergo phase 2b in 2009. The studies’ abstracts will be presented at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy Annual Meeting, held September 12-15 in San Francisco.

MPC-4326 fights HIV in a new way and is therefore first in a novel…