From there, investigators split the group in three, keeping a few patients on daily pills and giving others either monthly or every-8-weeks injections of rilpivirine and cabotegravir. Almost 95% of those who then received experimental injections had the bloodborne virus kept in control over the 32 weeks, as compared to 91% in another group taking three pills every day.
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Doctors have found a new combination of injectable HIV drugs that could replace the daily oral treatments a few HIV-positive patients now take to suppress the virus.
Now for the caveats: There may still be a fair amount of progress to be made before this treatment approach becomes as popular as one-to-three pill regimens currently used to treat HIV.
Yes, the language is a bit dense, but what it means is that long-lasting, injectable versions of the drugs were just as effective in fighting HIV as a daily dose of them in pill form.
‘Our hope in studying such combinations is to make HIV infection manageable with a potentially transformational all injectable regimen’.
Johnson & Johnson and partner ViiV Healthcare, which specializes in HIV drugs, on Tuesday announced results from the first 32 weeks of the planned 96-week study, which combines one drug from each company.
He added that the new HIV treatment regime could be on the market by 2020, dependant on the initial result being confirmed by a larger trial.
Kuritzkes, a consultant to ViiV but was not a part of this research, stressed that the injections should undergo extra testing, in a lot more patients and for much longer.
Since the AIDS epidemic began in the early 1980s, nearly 75 million people around the world have been infected with the HIV virus, which causes the deadly immune disorder.
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According to Business Insider, cabotegravir is being developed to suppress HIV through both oral and injectable treatments by ViiV Healthcare (a joint venture of GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer Inc., and Shionogi & Co.).
