British Pharmaceutical company ViiV Healthcare says it is partnering with an Irish company to develop a singe-tablet maintenance treatment for HIV.
ViiV, headquartered in London, says it has signed an agreement to join with Janssen R&D Ireland Ltd. to develop and market the two-drug single tablet for treating human immunodeficiency virus, combining ViiV's Tivicay (dolutegravir) with Janssen's Edurant (rilpivirine.)
The agreement is ViiV Healthcare's first collaboration with another company to develop a single-tablet treatment regimen from branded products, the company said in a release.
Clinical studies conducted to support the development program will begin in 2015, the company said, to investigate whether a two-drug regimen can be an effective HIV maintenance therapy for people already virally suppressed with a three-drug treament.
"New options that advance current therapies are increasingly important as patients and clinicians consider HIV care over the long term," said Dr. John Pottage, ViiV chief medical officer.
If the single-tablet compound eventually receives regulatory approval it could offer patients living with HIV the chance to switch from the current three-drug therapies to the two-drug regimen after the achievement of a stable suppressed viral load, ViiV said.
"HIV remains a significant medical challenge, and our goal is to find new treatment regimens for patients," says Paul Stoffels, worldwide chairman of Janssen.
ViiV's dolutegravir has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in combination with other anti-retroviral compounds for treating HIV infections in adults and children aged 12 and older weighing at least 88 pounds.
In Europe, it is approved for infected adults and children over age 12.
"Through this collaboration with Janssen we aim to develop a new combination therapy that meets the needs of patients, and adds to our scientific understanding of dolutegravir," Pottage said.
ViiV began in 2009 as a joint venture by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer, who transferred the HIV research assets to the newly formed company.
Janssen is a unit within Johnson & Johnson.
The simplifying and refining of HIV treatments seeks to reduce side effects, and a two-drug single tablet regimen could be a less toxic substitute for the current cocktails of drugs used to keep HIV infections at bay.
In 2012, around 35 million people around the globe were living with an HIV infection, data from the World Health Organization showed, and it is estimated 2.5 million people are newly infected every year.
