Strong data for Prezista HIV regimen

Irish drugmaker Tibotec says that results from a new ongoing, randomized, controlled, open-label Phase III study showed that 84% of treatment-naive HIV-1 infected adults taking an investigational dose of Prezista (darunavir) 800mg (two 400 mg tablets) with 100mg ritonavir once daily with Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) reached an undetectable viral load (under 50 copies/mL) at week 48, compared with 78% of patients taking Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir) 800mg/200mg once daily (or 400mg/100 mg twice daily) with Truvada.

The mean difference in response between the treatment groups was 5.3%, noted the firm, which is a unit of US health care major Johnson & Johnson. Results from the ARTEMIS study were presented at the 47th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, held in Chicago, USA. It is the first study to examine ritonavir-boosted Prezista in treatment-naive adult patients with HIV.