Combination therapies: the new standard in treating chronic illnesses

Historically, we have seen combination therapies used to treat illnesses such as malaria, tuberculosis (TB) and AIDS. In all three of these cases, combination therapies, or ‘drug cocktails’ helped to fight the sickness more effectively than a single agent treatment, writes Lan Huang, chief executive of USA-based BeyondSpring, in an overview of this field.

The trend in oncology has shifted to the use of combination therapy, because it has better efficacy against cancer, will eliminate cells that acquire a single drug resistance and can address multiple steps in the circle of cancer treatment simultaneously.

In the past, combination therapies have been successful, as multiple mechanisms can be employed, and the likelihood of drug-resistant cells forming becomes less likely. According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a treatment known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) is a triple-drug cocktail treatment that made AIDS a more manageable disease.