ViiV’s long-acting two-drug HIV regimen hits targets

A long-acting, two-drug HIV regimen being co-developed by ViiV Healthcare and Janssen Sciences Ireland UC has shown comparable viral suppression rates to a three-drug regimen in a Phase II trial, indicating its potential to reduce the dosing burden for patients and thus improve treatment adherence. The LATTE-2 study assessed long-acting, injectable formulations of cabotegravir (ViiV) and rilpivirine (Janssen, branded Edurant), given every four or eight weeks to patients with HIV-1 infection who had already achieved viral suppression with a daily three-drug oral regimen of cabotegravir plus two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). Following 96 weeks of maintenance treatment, viral suppression rates for the two-drug regimen dosed every eight weeks (94 percent) or every four weeks (87 percent) were comparable to the rate observed in patients continuing with a three-drug oral regimen (84 percent).