As of some time during 2015, Sequoia Pharmaceuticals closed up shop. The firm had been focused on new treatments for viral diseases including HIV/AIDS and HCV-induced hepatitis with a focus on the growing problem of drug-resistant infectious diseases. The companys lead program organized around development of protease inhibitors which have been designed to be more potent than existing therapies as well as effective in overcoming resistance. The many challenges in combating AIDS: the need for medicines to be effective against multidrug resistant HIV; getting the medicines to those most in need; education of those who are naïve as to the cause of AIDS; compliance with the therapies; and other difficult attitudes and logistics. Sequoia had a proprietary technology for generating high potency inhibitors (drug candidates) that target multiple, structurally-related binding sites. Using this technology, Sequoia scientists designed pluripotent, or "resistance repellent", protease inhibitors to treat AIDS. These drugs were predicted to be among the most potent anti-HIV drugs ever produced, uniquely suited both to treat drug resistant HIV infections as well as to prevent its emergence. The platform technology also being developed by Sequoia focused on design of HIV fusion inhibitors of high potency and broad specificity tthat would block the HIV entry process
