Study finds HIV treatment taken every eight weeks as effective as three daily pills
A new treatment for HIV taken once every eight weeks has been found just as affective as three daily pills, in one trial.
The trial backed by Johnson & Johnson as well as GlaxoSmithKlein, tested whether an injected drug taken once every eight weeks could effectively suppress HIV.
The head of J&J’s pharmaceuticals Paul Stoffels, said the drug could prove to be “transformational” in the way HIV is treated.
Saying he thought the combination could be on the market within five years, he said the results of the trial would need to be confirmed in larger final-stage trials.
The combination of rilpivirine from J&J and cabotegravir from GSK, kept the HIV virus suppressed to minimal levels, just as well as taking three pills daily.
It was tested with doses both monthly and every two months.
Those receiving the injection every month had a viral suppression of 94% after 32 weeks, and those every two months had a suppression rate of 95%.
In comparison, those on tablets had a suppression rate of 91%.
Another potential HIV vaccine is set to begin human trials, after a promising extended trial on animals.
The vaccine was created at the Institute of Human Virology, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine – headed up by esteemed HIV researcher Dr Robert Gallo.
Following promising results in an animal trial, the researchers are testing out a potential vaccine that could prevent or drastically reduce the changes of HIV infection.
Back in January, Bill Gates predicted that a HIV vaccine will be made available in the next fifteen years and recently donated $6 million to research a vaccine.
