GlaxoSmithKline's New Drug Challenges AIDS Treatment Orthodoxy
December 20 2016 - 5:57AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
LONDON-- GlaxoSmithKline PLC's ViiV Healthcare announced
positive phase-three trial results for its new HIV drug in a
dual-drug regimen, supporting the company's audacious bet that it
can shift the AIDS treatment orthodoxy away from three-drug
combinations.
U.K.-based Glaxo said its HIV pill dolutegravir plus Johnson
& Johnson's rilpivirine suppressed the virus as well as
traditional three- or four-drug combinations in two identical,
yearlong trials, each involving around 500 patients.
Dominique Limet, who leads ViiV Healthcare, said the company
would submit the two-drug combination to regulators next year. Both
medicines are already sold as components in combinations of three
drugs or more.
The result adds momentum to Glaxo's strategy of establishing
dolutegravir as the basis of simpler two-drug regimens for treating
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, upending the long-held practice of
combining at least three antiretroviral medicines to control the
virus. Such three-drug combinations, when introduced in the
mid-1990s, transformed AIDS from a fatal illness to a disease that
could be managed long-term.
It also could help Glaxo defend its HIV business against its
biggest rival, Gilead Sciences Inc., which is developing a drug
that would make its already-dominant three-drug regimen more
powerful still.
UBS analyst Michael Leuchten described the clinical-trial result
as "a step in the right direction" but cautioned that it was still
unclear whether Glaxo's strategy would win out over Gilead's in the
long term. "The key debate remains whether Gilead will gain the
upper hand again, or whether a disruptive two-drug regimen becomes
standard of care," he wrote in a note to clients.
Reducing the number of drugs taken for HIV has the advantage of
lowering the side effects of antiretroviral medicine, which include
nausea, diarrhea, kidney problems and bone-thinning. That is
especially beneficial to older HIV patients, who may be taking
drugs for other health problems, too.
As dolutegravir and rilpivirine both are branded drugs, this
particular two-drug combination wouldn't necessarily lighten the
financial burden of HIV. Most three-drug regimens include no more
than two branded drugs, while the remainder are older, generic
drugs. A Glaxo spokesman said the company hadn't yet set a price
for the two-drug combination.
Glaxo also is testing dolutegravir in combination with generic
HIV drug 3TC, a combination that carries more cost-saving
potential.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 20, 2016 05:42 ET (10:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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