LONDON - GlaxoSmithKline's before now fast-growing HIV drug corporate has received an important enhancement with the success of two major medical studies challenging a new two-drug treatment to control the virus that causes AIDS disease.
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The method is a withdrawal from conventional triple drug concoctions that can cause worrying side effects, particularly among older patients who make up a growing percentage of those treated for the disease.
Antiretroviral therapy has crooked HIV from a death verdict into a controllable state but patients need to stay on treatment for lifetime, so there is a growing emphasis on making medication as well-tolerated as conceivable.
GSK has technologically advanced the new two-drug combination through its majority-owned ViiV Healthcare, in which Pfizer and Shionogi also a stake holders.
Pulling back from common triple therapy is the contradictory approach to that being tracked by HIV market leader Gilead Sciences, which is relying on improving triple regimens, and analysts at Berenberg said it could help GSK gain market share.
Results of the two Phase III revisions, announced late on Monday, showed that the blend of GSK's dolutegravir and Johnson & Johnson's rilpivirine worked as well as three- or four-drug treatments.
Dominique Limet, chief executive of ViiV, said the results were "an important milestone in our understanding of how HIV can be treated", since they embody the first late-stage trial indication for the two-drug approach. ViiV will release comprehensive findings from the studies at a medical meeting next year and plans to seek governing approval for the new treatment approach in 2017.
It is one of several channel projects that GSK is relying on to recover its core prescription drug business as new chief executive Emma Walmsley prepares to take over from the end of March. In total, the company assumes important clinical results for between 20 and 30 experimental medications by the end of 2018.
GSK also broadcasted on Monday it was encouraging scientific expertise on its board by establishing a new science committee, charged with supervision research.
