'Once-a-week pill may make HIV treatment more effective'

Clinical trials showed that the new "Quad" pill was fast in acting and has fewer side-effects compared to two widely- used drug regimens.

HIV sufferers have to rigidly adhere to their medication routine because missed doses can quickly lead to the virus becoming resistant to the medication, making them more vulnerable to a progression of their illness.

But, the results from two large international trials, published in The Lancet, revealed that Quad was an "important new treatment option" that could improve compliance with treatment.

"Our results provide an additional highly potent, well-tolerated treatment option and highlight the simplicity of treatment resulting from combining several antiretrovirals in a single pill," lead study author Paul Sax from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

He added that studies have shown single pill treatments improve both adherence and patient satisfaction and help prevent prescription errors, helping reducing the likelihood of treatment failure and drug resistance.

The Quad pill, which is a combination of elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, was created by Gilead Sciences.

In the new study, the first trial randomly assigned 700 patients from centres across North America to start treatment with two different single tablet regimens -- either Quad, or a gold standard regimen known as Atripla.

After 48 weeks of treatment, 88 per cent of patients given Quad suppressed viral loads to undetectable levels compared with 84 per cent in the Atripla group.

Adverse events that led to patients discontinuing treatment were infrequent and similar in both groups. Mild nausea was more common with Quad, but patients were less likely to have dizziness, abnormal dreams and insomnia compared with Atripla. (More)