HIV Drug Kaletra Proves Effective in Five-Year Study

In a five-year study, most patients using Abbott Laboratories' HIV drug Kaletra achieved and maintained undetectable viral levels and did not develop drug resistance. In releasing the study Monday in Chicago at a conference of the American Society of Microbiology, Abbott said the data demonstrate that undetectable viral levels can be maintained when Kaletra is administered with two other drugs.

In the study of 100 patients, 67 of 68 patients who took the medications as an initial treatment and remained on the treatment for 252 weeks had undetectable levels of the virus. Patients in the study took Kaletra along with GlaxoSmithKline's lamivudine and Bristol-Myers Squibb's stavudine - two nucleoside analogues. Kaletra is the most prescribed protease inhibitor in the United States and Europe.

"This is one of only two studies to be carried out for this duration of time," said Dr. Joseph Eron, lead investigator and associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and director of the Clinical Core at the university's Center for AIDS Research. "It clearly shows that patients can be treated with a durable regimen and have viral suppression." It also shows that if the virus remains suppressed, patients "are very very unlikely to develop resistance to the treatment," Eron said.

Back to other news for September 16, 2003