AEGiS-Reuters: Glaxo wins EU approval for Ziagen

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Glaxo wins EU approval for Ziagen

Reuters NewMedia - Friday July 9, 1999

LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) - British drugs group Glaxo Wellcome Plc said on Friday that it had received approval from the European Commission to market its HIV/AIDS treatment Ziagen across all 15 countries of the European Union. In a statement, the company said the drug, which is intended to be taken in combination with other treatments, had already been approved in countries including the U.S, Brazil, Canada and Mexico.

Ziagen is the newest in a class of drugs known as reverse transcriptase inhibitors. Salomon Smith Barney said Ziagen had achieved a market share of around six percent of new prescriptions in its first six months of launch in the U.S.

The bank's analysts predict Ziagen sales of 288 million pounds a year by 2003. Glaxo Wellcome -- which is the leading producer of anti-HIV therapies including Retrovir, Epivir, Combivir and another new drug Agenerase -- said Ziagen showed siginficant impact in suppressing replication of the virus in previously untreated adults.

The company said that when taken in combination with Combivir (a tablet which includes both Retrovir and Epivir), patients were required to take a total of two pills twice a day.
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