文档介绍：6 Once-daily Pill Could Simplify HIV Treatment
Bristol-Myers Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences bined many HIV drugs into a single pill Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS,2 for example, are all treated binations of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pills to take. It would be simpler if bined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day.
Now, panies say they have done that for people just starting treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. panies are Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences. They have developed a single pill bines three drugs currently on the Bristol-Myers Squibb sells one of them under the name of bined the others, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four.
Combining drugs involves more than technical issues. It also involves issues petition if the drugs are made by panies. The new once-daily pill is the result of what is described as the first joint venture agreement of its kind in the treatment of HIV
In January the New England Journal of Medicine5 published a study of the new pill. pared its effectiveness to6 that of the widely bination of Sustiva bivir. Combivir contains two drugs, AZT7 and The researchers say that after one year of treatment, the new pill suppressed HIV levels in more patients and with fewer side Gilead paid for the study. Professor Joel Gallant at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, led the research. He is a paid adviser to Gilead and Bristol-Meyers Squibb as well as the maker bivir, GlaxoSmithKline.
Glaxo Smith Kline reacted to the findings by saying that a single study is of limited value. It says the effectiveness bivir has been shown in each of more than fifty studies.
The price of the new once-daily pill has not been announced. But Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb say they will provide it at reduced cost to developing countries. They plan in the next few mo