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New Merck HIV treatment 'comparable' to Sustiva
14 Aug 2006
Clinical Research
An ongoing trial of MK-0518, an investigational HIV treatment, found it had a similar effect on HIV RNA as market-leader Sustiva, according to its developers Merck.
Bristol-Myers Squibb's treatment had led US prescriptions for HIV treatments since October 2000, but Merck contends that its in-development drug works as well.
By separately administering Sustiva (efavirenz) and MK-0518 in combination with tenofovir and lamivudine, both multi-agent treatments brought 85-95 per cent of patients to below 50 copies/mL of HIV RNA.
Martin Markowitz, clinical director at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the study's leader, said: "This early study showed a rapid and significant reduction in viral load up to 24 weeks with MK-0518 in treatment-naive patients. In this study MK-0518 was generally well tolerated."
"This study should lend further insight into the potential of HIV integrase inhibitors as a new and exciting class of antiretroviral agents," he added.
The study is to be conducted over 48 weeks, is double-blind and randomised, and uses patients who have not received previous treatment.
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