Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - November 18, 2005
Preliminary 24-week data from the 411-patient trial were presented in Dublin at the European AIDS Conference.
Gilead said the study showed that 76 percent of patients who switched to Truvada from Combivir, both in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Sustiva (efavirenz), achieved very low levels of the virus, compared with 59 percent before the switch was made.
The most common side effects seen in the trial were nausea, diarrhea and headache, the company said.
The data "could facilitate Truvada access to the lucrative but challenging Combivir patient market," Deutsche Bank analyst Jennifer Chao said in report.
Truvada, a combination of Gilead's drugs Viread and Emtriva, works by blocking reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that HIV requires for replication.
Combivir itself includes two HIV drugs, Epivir -- also known as lamivudine and 3TC -- and Retrovir, also known as AZT and zidovudine. They are members of the HIV class of medicines called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
Drug makers increasingly are combining HIV drugs into single pills to free HIV patients from the complications of having to take a wide range of medicines at different times of the day.
Gilead and Bristol-Myers have formed a venture to develop and sell a once-daily formulation of Viread, Emtriva and Sustiva. Viread and Emtriva are also nucleosides, while Sustiva belongs to another class of drugs called non-nucleosides.
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