Last week, the FDA approved the third single-pill regimen for HIV - Gilead's "Quad" regimen.
I've blogged about the Quad pill before. Studies of the new regimen -- which contains tenofovir, emtricitabine, elvitegravir, and cobicistat -- had looked extremely promising, and it's very exciting that it has now been approved. The drug, which is now called Stribild, contains two established HIV medications and two new ones.
The active medications in Quad are:
- tenofovir, a nucleotide-analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitor. Together with emtricitabine, tenofovir is often prescribed in the combined pill Truvada. If that name sounds familiar, it's because the drug has gained a great deal of notoriety as part of the treatment as prevention debate.
- emtricitabine, a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor
- elvitegravir, a new integrase inhibitor
- cobicistat, a new booster that can be used to increase the activity of other antiretroviral drugs. It is an alternative to ritonavir.
The new pill has some potentially serious side effects, but all cART regimens do. It doesn't appear to be any worse than established regimens, and it may even be better, although it does cause some problems with monitoring kidney health. I look forward to seeing how it is integrated into HIV care... and whether other people also continue to call it "Quad" rather than referring to it by its brand name.
Source: http://std.about.com/b/2012/09/07/welcome-to-the-quad.htm
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