More oral amphotericin developments

We featured a story a few months back which was based on the development of a variant of amphotericin which could be taken by mouth rather than as now by intravenous injection (IV). There are a number of advantages to taking a drug orally, not the least of which is convenience for the patient (they can administer their own drug at home) but also includes reducing the number of visits to hospital as IV has to be done under close medical supervision.

It turns out that there is more than one oral amphotericin drug under test. This article mentions a drug currently known as iCo-009 which has already been extensively researched (though it looks like all of the currently published work is based on animal models) and found to be promising. Human trials are the next step.

There is more work to do before this or other new variants of amphotericin B comes to the clinic but these are hopeful signs of the development of new uses for older drugs which can only be a good thing for all concerned.