New AIDS Drug OKd to Help Fight Pneumonia Parasite
From Associated Press
WASHINGTON —
A new treatment has been approved to help AIDS patients and others with damaged immune systems fight off a deadly pneumonia parasite, the Food and Drug Administration said Monday.
The agency informed U.S. Bioscience Inc. that it can begin marketing trimetrexate glucuronate as an alternative therapy for moderate-to-severe cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.
The company’s brand name for the intravenous drug is Neutrexin. A second drug, leucovorin, must be given at the same time to protect normal cells while trimetrexate attacks the parasite that invades the lungs of patients with the pneumonia.
