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Updated: Feb 4, 2026

Trans-Tympanic Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Ototoxicity
Published on: March 16, 2018
Ultra-long-acting removable drug delivery system for HIV treatment and prevention
Martina Kovarova1, S Rahima Benhabbour2, Ivana Massud3
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Center for AIDS Research, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 120 Mason Farm Rd. CB 7042, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. kovarovm@med.unc.edu.
Abstract:
Non-adherence to medication is an important health care problem, especially in the treatment of chronic conditions. Injectable long-acting (LA) formulations of antiretrovirals (ARVs) represent a viable alternative to improve adherence to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. However, the LA-ARV formulations currently in clinical trials cannot be removed after administration even if adverse events occur. Here we show an ultra-LA removable system that delivers drug for up to 9 months and can be safely removed to stop drug delivery. We use two pre-clinical models for HIV transmission and treatment, non-human primates (NHP) and humanized BLT (bone marrow/liver/thymus) mice and show a single dose of subcutaneously administered ultra-LA dolutegravir effectively delivers the drug in both models and show suppression of viremia and protection from multiple high-dose vaginal HIV challenges in BLT mice. This approach represents a potentially effective strategy for the ultra-LA drug delivery with multiple possible therapeutic applications.
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