There are a bunch of other drugs that can be used once-a-day, including Viramune, which achieves good blood levels throughout the 24-hour period. And also abacavir, which also appears to achieve adequate levels to support once-a-day. Although those aren't formally approved for once-a-day, many clinicians use them once-a-day.
GARY COHAN, MD: In patients who have never been on an antiviral therapy, I think for the vast majority of those patients at least 70 or 80% of those patients, there are probably going to be good once-daily options available.
ANNOUNCER: Many times, even people doing well on more complicated regimens can switch.
GARY COHAN, MD: We have many patients who were started on good twice-daily drug regimens or even three-time-daily drug regimens several years ago. They're not complaining. They're viral loads are undetectable. But, that was then and this is now. And we have better therapies, and as therapies evolve I think it's important to simplify the therapy for the patient to again decrease the likelihood or the odds of a patient becoming resistant because of missed doses. So I'm a big advocate of treatment simplification, if possible, to once-daily.
ANNOUNCER: Once-daily HIV drugs, like all medicines, have side effects. These can include nausea, rashes, dizziness or problems sleeping, problems with the liver and pancreas, and acid build-up in the blood. But doctors say these are generally mild and that most patients can tolerate the drugs.
BRIAN BOYLE, MD: The side effects that you commonly see with these drugs are generally manageable. And again, most of them are self-limited, which means that, given a little bit of time, they tend to go away on their own.
ANNOUNCER: HIV therapy is highly individualized. And while once-daily medications are not for everybody, they are very valuable for many people.
DAVID L. BUTCHER, MD: I think there are some people where doing more than taking a few pills when they get up or a few pills at bedtime is going to be near impossible, and thus, for those people, they can now get great success from their regimen with viral load suppression, CD4 increases, much better health and they can do it. It's not going to fix it for everybody, but it's clearly had an impact on a number of people.
GARY COHAN, MD: We're going to save lives because we've gone to once-daily therapy. When you have to dose medications multiple times a day, there are very few patients who can sustain that very rigorous dosing regimen for the long haul. So on a chronic manageable disease basis, we're going to save a lot of lives with once-daily therapy.
