HIV infection is a serious but treatable disease, yet current treatment is 
limited by development of resistance and high rates of adverse drug reactions. 
Antiretroviral therapy is especially suitable for pharmacogenomic investigation 
as both drug exposure and treatment response can be reliably measured. 
Increasing knowledge about genes implicated in pharmacokinetics, mode of action, 
efficacy, and toxicity of drugs has already provided relevant results for 
clinical practice, for example: The strong association of the abacavir 
hypersensitivity reaction with HLA-B*5701 permits testing patients for the 
allele, and if present avoiding the drug and therefore preventing the reaction. 
Persons with the allele CYP2B6*6 present higher efavirenz "area under the curve" 
and have increased risk of neuropsychological toxicity. Additional gene variants 
are being discovered that influence the action of antiretroviral drugs. And, 
moreover, it is expected that larger-scale comprehensive genome approaches will 
profoundly improve the landscape of knowledge of HIV therapy in the future. The 
present article shows some recent patents related to the treatment of viral 
infections.