How Does a Protease Inhibitor Work?

Pfizer Hospital
Pfizer UK

In order to survive, all viruses have the same goal: to find a living host, invade its cells, use the cells’ internal machinery to make copies of itself and then release the newly made virus to infect more cells.¹ This is known as the viral life cycle. 

But protease inhibitors, a class of medicines used to treat HIV and hepatitis C,² have been shown to stop this process. Often in the form of an oral therapy, or a pill, these antiviral treatments work by blocking a critical enzyme (a protease) that the virus needs to be able to replicate.³

To put it simply, they disable the virus from making copies of itself so it can no longer continue to infect its host. 

Take a look behind the science to find out more:

References

1. Cohen, F.S. (2016). How Viruses Invade Cells. Accessed January 2022.
2. MedicineNet. Protease Inhibitors (PI) Drug Class. Accessed January 2022.
3. Healthline. HIV: A Guide to Protease Inhibitors. Accessed January 2022. 

PP-PFE-GBR-4355 / February 2022