Pfizer's new treatment Celsentri (maraviroc) blocks HIV's entry to immune system cells - the first new oral class of HIV/Aids treatment in more than a decade.
Although it is not a cure, it can help patients who have not responded to other available HIV drugs. A cocktail of three drugs collectively called HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) has dramatically improved the life expectancy of patients with HIV, but resistance to these drugs is a problem.
Maraviroc was approved in the US in August, where it is marketed under the name of Selzentry.
It is taken in combination with other anti-retroviral drugs, but works in an entirely new way.
It blocks a microscopic doorway - the CCR5 receptor - which HIV uses to enter and infect human cells called CD4-T-cells.
All other currently available oral HIV medicines work on the HIV virus once it has entered the immune cells.
Trials show that in suitable patients - those infected with only CCR5-tropic HIV-1 - it can help reduce the levels of virus circulating in the blood stream and increase the numbers of immune CD4 cells.
Between 50 and 78% of people with HIV have this strain.
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