No food or drink restrictions for new HIV treatment
pharmafile | September 1, 2004 | News story | |Â Â Â
GlaxoSmithKline has launched Telzir in the UK, a new protease inhibitor for HIV patients and the first ever to have no food or drink restrictions.
The drug was cleared by the EMEA in March after it showed it could reduce the concentrations of HIV in plasma in both patients who were new to antiretroviral therapy as well as those already on medication.
Telzir's advantage over its competitors is in its simplified dosing regime, which should encourage patient compliance and thus reduce the chances of patients developing drug resistance.
The drug is taken twice a day with another protease inhibitor (PI), Abbott's Norvir, to form a 'boosted PI treatment' that increases the levels of the drug circulating in the body and the combination efficacy.
Dr Ed Wilkins, consultant in Infectious Diseases at North Manchester General Hospital, said: "Adherence to treatment can be a real problem for people living with HIV. A drug with no food and drink restrictions and few side-effects may encourage patients to stick to their treatment which will ultimately improve their long-term outcome."
PIs can be affected by cross-resistance to other members of that therapeutic class. So, HIV that is resistant to one PI may already be partially or fully resistant to other PIs, or may develop resistance to other PIs more quickly.
But treatment with Telzir has not been associated with the development of resistance to existing PIs, which may help to preserve future treatment options for people living with HIV.
HIV drug resistance is becoming increasingly prevalent with an estimated 14% of recently infected patients having a strain of HIV either partially or wholly resistant to existing antiretrovirals. At the end of 2003 it was estimated that the number of people living with HIV in the UK stood at 62,920. The largest rise in new HIV diagnoses has been among heterosexual people, with almost three times as many diagnosed in 2002 compared with 1996.
But the introduction of highly effective antiretroviral treatments has seen the number of AIDS' diagnoses and deaths resulting from AIDS-related infections begin to decline and HIV is now viewed as a chronic condition that requires a long-term management plan.
Telzir was co-discovered by GlaxoSmithKline and Vertex Pharmaceuticals and is marketed in the USA under the brand name Lexiva after being approved by the FDA in October 2003.
GSK also manufactures the HIV treatment Amprenavir (agenerase), a forerunner of Telzir that the FDA approved in 1999.
Telzir is a 'prodrug' of agenerase, meaning it must be broken down inside the body before it can become active.
Other protease inhibitors available in the UK include Kaletra (Abbott), Crixivan (MSD), Fortovase (Roche), Invirase (Roche) and Viracept (Roche).
