The results of several open-label clinical studies presented at the 43rd Interscience Conference of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) [Chicago, US; September 2003] showed that a new antifungal agent, posaconazole [Noxafil] has promising activity against a number of recalcitrant infections. Many of the patients involved in these studies had haematological malignancies, chronic granulomatous disease or infections of the central nervous system, or had received solid organ transplants; fungal infections in such patients are difficult to treat and often have a poor prognosis. In most cases patients had failed, or were unable to tolerate, their previous antifungal therapy. Pharmacokinetic studies presented at the meeting showed that the bioavailability of posaconazole was not affected by gender or ethnicity, and that the effects of age were not clinically significant. Another study showed that a high-fat nutritional supplement, typical of those often given to patients with fungal infections, increased the absorption of posaconazole.