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

I-I IVN HIA1
AIDSI I.i.V
OMSD
For Immediate ReleaseMSD
Contacts: Janet Skidmore Kelley Dougherty
[phone] [phone]
During the World AIDS Conference:
Hotel Des Bergues
[phone]
EFAVIRENZ IN SUMMARY
Key Facts and Clinical Trial Results
Efavirenz is a new antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS with encouraging
clinical results in combinations that demonstrate high levels of efficacy and
convenient once-daily dosing coupled with excellent tolerability. A novel nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), efavirenz is being studied in
combination with other antiretroviral treatments to suppress HIV in adults and
children. An application to market once-daily efavirenz in the European Union
was filed this week.
Discovered in the research laboratories of Merck & Co., Inc., New Jersey,
USA, in 1991, efavirenz has been shown to offer potent and durable
antiretroviral action against HIV in combination with CRIXIVANTM*, the potent
protease inhibitor also discovered and marketed by MSD. Efavirenz has also
shown benefits when combined with another group of drugs known as
nucleoside analogues (also called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, or
nRTIs). In 1994, efavirenz was licensed to DuPont Pharma, which continued
clinical development.

*CRIXIVANTM is a trademark of Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA