Two monthly antiretoviral injections work as good as pills - trial

Bloody fantastic! Although they're talking about at least 5 years before the thing gets into the market amongst us mere mortals. WTF? Why does it take that long FFS? And you can bet your bottom dollar it's going to be longer for it to get from the US to Australia.


Currently I'm taking 11 pills in the morning for various illnesses (including HIV) and a pill at night making 12 pills a day. Three of those are HIV pills. Anything that could get me under 10 pills a day and stop me rattling would be fuckin amazing!

Unfortunately there's more to it than just a magic injection. Would the HIV medication they used in the trial work for me? What I'm taking now works marvelously, and I've not wouhd up in the Kidney Care ward as I did with my first HIV drug adventure. Probably for me I'd be more comfortable with just sticking with what's working well for me now and not want to experiment.

A new treatment for HIV taken once every eight weeks has been found just as affective as three daily pills, in one trial. 

The trial backed by Johnson & Johnson as well as GlaxoSmithKlein, tested whether an injected drug taken once every eight weeks could effectively suppress HIV. 

The head of J&J’s pharmaceuticals Paul Stoffels, said the drug could prove to be “transformational” in the way HIV is treated. 

Saying he thought the combination could be on the market within five years, he said the results of the trial would need to be confirmed in larger final-stage trials. 

The combination of rilpivirine from J&J and cabotegravir from GSK, kept the HIV virus suppressed to minimal levels, just as well as taking three pills daily. 

It was tested with doses both monthly and every two months. 

Those receiving the injection every month had a viral suppression of 94% after 32 weeks, and those every two months had a suppression rate of 95%. 

In comparison, those on tablets had a suppression rate of 91%. Pink News