HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

The Food and Drug Administration has approve a new pill that combines three of the most widely prescribed HIV drugs in the United States into a once-daily pill.

The new pill combines Bristol-Myers Squibb's (BMS) drug Sustiva (efavirenz) with Gilead Sciences' Truvada, a drug combining Viread (tenofovir) and Emtriva (emtracitabine). The two companies, which have not yet named the large, salmon-colored 1,500-mg pill, have suggested it will cost about the same as Sustiva and Truvada bought separately, or about $1,200 a month.

A

View our poll archive

once-daily combination treatment was not feasible until individual once-a-day HIV drugs were developed in recent years. However, no one company owned the drugs necessary for an effective combination pill. In April 2004, the FDA asked BMS, Gilead, and Merck to cooperate in making such a drug.

Development of the BMS-Gilead drug took about a year. The pill layers the drugs, as it was found they melted easily when simply mixed. As required by the FDA, the new pill is the bioequivalent to the three drugs taken separately.

A once-daily treatment should make adherence easier, but it is unclear how much compared to two drugs twice-a-day. Mental-health and substance-use issues, rather than convenience, are the obstacle for some patients adhering to treatment, said Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles. And a drug's strength and side effects are more important to patients than convenience, said Bob Huff, who edits a treatment newsletter for New York-based Gay Men's Health Crisis.

from the New York Times