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LONDON (Alliance News) - Drug major GlaxoSmithKline PLC on Wednesday noted that HIV treatment Juluca had been shown to maintain its suppression of the virus in patients after three years.
Juluca is a two-drug regimen of dolutegravir and rilpivirine and was developed by ViiV Healthcare, a specialist HIV company created by Glaxo and Pfizer Inc in 2009. Japanese pharma firm Shionogi & Co Ltd joined ViiV Healthcare in 2012.
In the three-year Sword 1 and Sword 2 studies, 84% of study participants who switched from a three- or four-drug regimen to Juluca had continued viral suppression.
ViiV Healthcare Chief Scientific Medical Officer John Pottage said: "The Sword 1 and 2 studies are the first phase three HIV studies to show long-term data for switching from three-drug combination to an oral 2-drug regimen, and the efficacy, tolerability and barrier to resistance out to three years demonstrated in the study provides further reassurance of the suitability of Juluca for many virologically suppressed adults living with HIV."
Moderate to life threatening events occurred in 5% of patients and 6% of study participants had adverse events that caused them to discontinue, the study showed.
Juluca has been approved for HIV in the EU and US, as well as other countries, and regulatory marketing applications have been submitted worldwide.
Shares in Glaxo were down 1.8% at 1,572.40 pence on Wednesday.
