Encouraging results for GSK two-drug HIV treatment

GSK, together with other companies, has been trying to find alternative treatments for HIV so that patients can take fewer drugs and take them less frequently. Scientists believe taking fewer medicines will result in fewer side effects, in addition to making life easier for patients.
GSK’s ViiV Healthcare division has reported that two phase III studies of its two-drug HIV treatment, GEMINI-1 and GEMINI-2, have demonstrated that taking dolutegravir and lamivudine as a two-drug regime is just as effective in the treatment of HIV as the cocktail of three drugs of dolutegravir and two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
ViiV’s chief medical officer John Pottage said: “The GEMINI studies demonstrate the potency, safety and tolerability of the dolutegravir plus lamivudine combination. They affirm our two-drug regimen strategy and reinforce our belief that many patients can control their disease with two drugs instead of three or more. Importantly, the studies show that this two-drug regimen could be an option for treatment naïve patients and can support a broad range of patients living with HIV around the world.”
Liberum analyst Graham Doyle said: “We believe this is an important boost to GSK’s longer term position in HIV vs Gilead but expect the share reaction to be more muted given consensus scepticism on duals’ adoption without long term data on resistance,”