Once-daily Pill Could Simplify HIV Treatment
Bristol-Myers Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have combined 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 with combinations of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pills to take. It would be simpler if drug companies combined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day.
Now, two companies say they have done that for people just starting treatment for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The companies are Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences. They have developed a single pill that combines three drugs currently on the market.3 Bristol-Myers Squibb sells one of them under the name of Sustiva.4 Gilead combined the others, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four.
Combining drugs involves more than technical issues. It also involves issues of competition if the drugs are made by different companies. 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