HIV AIDS News [International Conference on AIDS (12th: 1998: Geneva, Switzerland)]

Still another study that will look at BID dosing for CRIXIVAN is the BID
Efficacy and Safety Trial (BEST), which is getting underway this month. The
BEST investigators will recruit 300 patients from 12 countries -- Argentina,
Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
Netherlands, Portugal and Spain -- with the aim of gathering additional data on
twice-daily dosing. BEST will study the effect of twice- and three-times-a-day
CRIXIVAN in combination with two nucleoside analogues (also called nucleoside
reverse transcriptase inhibitors, or nRTIs).
Toward the Final Pieces?
"These studies indicate that we may be on our way to fitting in the final
pieces of the treatment jigsaw," said Jose Gatell, M.D., of the University of
Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, and the lead investigator for BEST. "We know that
CRIXIVAN given three times a day, combined with two other antiretroviral
therapies, can keep HIV virus levels suppressed to an undetectable level for
more than two years, which no other protease inhibitor has yet been able to
demonstrate.
"We believe that simpler twice-daily treatments based on CRIXIVAN will
offer durable efficacy, convenient dosing, and few side effects -- precisely what
every physician is trying to achieve in the fight against HIV," Dr. Gatell said.
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