Merck's doravirine recommended to NHS use in England

US pharma giant Merck & Co (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside North America, today revealed that its new treatment for HIV-1 infection – doravirine – has been recommended for National Health Service (NHS) use in England. The decision means that people living with HIV in England will be first to have routine access to doravirine in the UK.

Doravirine, which was approved under the trade name Pifeltro by the European Commission in November last year, sits in a class of treatments known as NNRTIs (non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors) that work by blocking the action of reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that plays a key role in helping HIV replicate in the body. Doravirine is a re-engineered molecule that has been specifically designed to address some particular challenges of the NNRTI class related to treatment including resistance, side effects and tolerability.

The once-daily fixed dose combination will be known as Delstrigo (100mg doravirine, 300mg lamivudine, 300mg tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) and the single-entity tablet Pifeltro (100mg doravirine). This means doravirine can therefore be used in combination with other tablets to make a triple-combination treatment or as a complete triple combination in a single daily pill.