The baby in the news for being cured of AIDS was given two drugs sold by ViiV Healthcare and Abbott Laboratories.
ViiV Healthcare is a joint venture formed by GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer in 2009 to focus only on HIV medicines. ViiV Healthcare's U.S. headquarters is in Research Triangle Park.
An experimental treatment for HIV being developed by GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Shionogi Co. reduced the virus in more patients than another treatment that is currently the top-selling AIDs medicine.
Eighty-eight percent of patients who took the drug, dolutegravir, saw the virus suppressed, compared to 81 percent of participants who took a single tablet regimen of Atripla, Gilead Sciences AIDs drug. Atripla generated $3.2 billion in revenue last year.
GSK and its partners announced the results for dolutegravir on Wednesday.
Dolutegravir was jointly created by Shionogi and GSK and while it was developed in the United States and the United Kingdom, where GSK is based, a significant amount of the work on the drug was done at its U.S. headquarters in Research
Triangle Park. The Medicine Development Leader for dolutegravir, Garrett Nichols, is based in RTP, said GSK spokeswoman Melinda Stubbee.
GSK has a long history with HIV treatments. The first AIDS pill, known as AZT, was developed by a GSK predecessor company, Burroughs-Wellcome.
The Food and Drug Administration has agreed to give a priority review to Salix Pharmaceutical's potential treatment for HIV-associated diarrhea.
The Raleigh company announced this morning that the FDA has set a June 5 target for making its decision on whether or not to approve the drug.
The FDA grants priority reviews to drugs that offer major advances in treatment or which provide treatment where no adequate therapy exists.
Salix submitted the drug, crofelemer, to the FDA for review in December. Crofelemer are 125 mg tablets used to treat diarrhea in patients with HIV or AIDS who are on anti-retroviral therapy.
Salix estimates that some 150,000 patients on the therapy experience chronic diarrhea which can cause weight loss and complicate treatment.
Chimerix, a Durham biopharmaceutical company, said Tuesday it raised $16.1 million to continue testing antiviral drugs for treating smallpox.
The latest round of financing brings the seven-year-old company’s total haul to $56 million, but Chimerix is still at least several years away from having a commercial product, said chief operating officer Kenneth Moch.
