ViiV Healthcare offers evidence that its two-drug regimen is as good as three in HIV

Three-year results from the Phase III GEMINI 1 & 2 studies at the HIV Glasgow 2020 congress have been presented by ViiV Healthcare, the HIV specialist company majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK).

Findings showed that the two-drug regimen (2DR) of dolutegravir plus lamivudine, which is marketed as Dovato, continued to offer non-inferior efficacy, a high genetic barrier to resistance and a comparable safety profile versus a three-drug regimen of dolutegravir plus two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC), in treatment-naïve adults with HIV-1.

Pedro Cahn, scientific director, Fundación Huésped, professor of Infectious Diseases, Buenos Aires University Medical School, and principal investigator for the GEMINI study program, said: “These long-term data confirm that dolutegravir-based two-drug regimens have a rightful place in the HIV treatment compendium. Dolutegravir plus lamivudine continues to demonstrate long-term non-inferior efficacy compared to dolutegravir plus TDF/FTC with benefits beyond viral suppression.