Bristol Myers Squibb announces joint HIV application

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have announced an application to the FDA for an HIV drug combination product developed between the two companies. The once-daily pill has been in development since 2004 and comprises Bristol-Myers Squibb’s anti-HIV drug Sustiva and Gilead’s Truvada, to be used on its own or in conjunction with other antiviral drugs. All of its active ingredients work by blocking the production of the enzyme transcriptase, which the HIV virus uses to reproduce.

The collaboration, described by Bristol-Myers Squibb as the first of its kind, will provide the world’s first once-daily highly active retroantiviral therapy, according to the drug’s developers. Anthony C. Hooper, president of US pharmaceuticals at Bristol-Myers Squibb, said: “The collaboration between the companies is an important milestone for patients living with HIV.”

“Working together, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences are ushering in a new era of collaboration driven by the need to deliver HIV therapies to patients in need,” he added.

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead say they will share marketing responsibilities and revenues, while continuing to market their existing anti-HIV drugs separately.

According to Avert, a UK-based HIV/AIDS charity, at the end of 2004 an estimated 58,300 adults were living with HIV in the UK, of which approximately a third were unaware of their infection. It said that 5,560 people in the UK were diagnosed with HIV in 2005 and that heterosexually acquired instances had increased, often being contracted from countries with high prevalence of HIV.

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