Discontinued drugs in 2005: anti-infectives

This perspective is the fifth in a series discussing drugs dropped from development in 2005, of which 11 were being developed for infectious diseases. Of these, eight were antivirals and were dropped in Phase II or III: Medivir's alovudine, Ono Pharmaceuticals' aplaviroc hydrochloride and Excite's immunotherapeutic Xcellerate™ for HIV; Boehringer Ingelheim's ciluprevir, ViroPharma's HCV-086, Isis Pharmaceuticals' antisense oligonucleotide ISIS-14803, Japan Tobacco's JTK-003 and Rigel's R803 for hepatitis C virus. The remaining discontinued anti-infective drugs were an antibacterial vaccine (Vical's anthrax vaccine), an antiseptic (YM Bioscience's Dermofural™) and an antifungal formulation (MacroChem's topical econazole). The drugs are grouped by compound class and reasons for their failure are discussed in this article.