Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced on Friday that it is stopping the development of two drugs, including one to treat HIV infection, Reuters reports (Clarke, Reuters, 7/4). The company said it is dropping the development of the antiretroviral capravirine because the drug in two studies did not significantly boost the efficacy of already-approved antiretroviral combinations among HIV-positive people who had failed to respond to those regimens. Pfizer plans to return the rights to capravirine to Shionogi & Co., the Japanese company that developed the compound. Pfizer will continue its late-stage trials of another antiretroviral drug called maraviroc, which is designed to prevent HIV from entering cells (Vogt, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 7/1). Barbara Ryan, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, said capravirine would have produced peak sales of about $200 million if it had been approved, according to Reuters (Reuters, 7/4).

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