An article from San Francisco Business Times titled “Pfizer Drug Approval Helps Monogram” describes how Pfizer Inc. was successful in being granted full FDA approval for Selzentry, the next generation HIV drug. This progress is expected to boost sales of a test from Monogram Biosciences Inc., which is located in South San Francisco. Pfizer used Monogram’s Trofile diagnostic test, a test that is intended to furnish physicians with a treatment roadmap through the identification of a particular HIV strain present in a patient.

Considered as a fully approved HIV treatment, Selzentry’s mechanism involves preventing the virus from entering cells by inhibiting the virus from interfacing with the cells’ receptors. This method works better than those of all the other classes of oral HIV drugs that combat the virus inside the cell. Selzentry was initially discovered by Pfizer scientists in 2000; it was then introduced in the market by 2007, wherein the drug received sped up conditional approval based on 24-week information derived from Phase III studies. Finally, it was granted full FDA approval on November 26, 2008.

Pfizer Incorporated is the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company in terms of sales. As of 2007, its revenue was placed at $48.4 billion.

In 1849, Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt founded Pfizer in Brooklyn, New York. With headquarters in New York City, New York, Pfizer has more than 86,600 employees as of 2008. It markets popular brands such as Lipitor, Accupril, Celebrex, Zoloft, and Viagra.

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