U.S. regulators Wednesday approved a once-a-day pill combining three of the most frequently used AIDS drugs, capping a decades-long quest to make treatment simpler for patients with HIV.
The drug, called Atripla, is composed of Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Viread and Emtriva medicines and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Sustiva.
The tablet is intended to help patients avoid missing doses.
Earlier drug cocktails often involved swallowing 30 to 50 pills a day, at varying intervals and with different restrictions on eating and drinking.
“Think how far we’ve come that we can treat HIV in one pill once a day,” said Joel Gallant, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who runs a clinic for HIV patients.
“Ten years ago, people were taking horrendous and toxic regimens that saved their lives, but at a great cost.”
Atripla, costing $1,150.88 a month at wholesale, will reach U.S. patients within seven business days, Gilead spokesman James Loduca said.
The FDA cleared the pill in less than three months, part of a push to speed the introduction of treatments that combine already approved HIV drugs. Atripla is the first AIDS medicine to mix products from different manufacturers.
When treated with one drug at a time, the AIDS virus quickly develops resistance that makes the medicine ineffective.
Since 1996, researchers have largely overcome HIV drug resistance by using a mix of three or more drugs that work together by attacking different parts of the virus at once.
