Protease inhibitors are a new class of anti-HIV drugs.
They work by blocking a part of HIV called protease. When protease is blocked, HIV makes copies of itself that can't infect new cells. There is no information on the use of saquinavir in children. Saquinavir, in the current formulation, is not very well absorbed by the body and does not have as strong an anti-HIV effect as the other approved protease inhibitors. In this study, people that were resistant to saquinavir did not benefit from switching to another protease inhibitor.