Treatment Action Group Says New Study Results Will Improve Treatment for Many AIDS Patients

From: Spencer Cox To: Jon Cohen Date: 2/24/97 Time: 5:39:00 PM Page 2 of 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Spencer Cox
February 24, 1997 [phone]
TREATMENT ACTION GROUP SAYS NEW STUDY RESULTS
WILL IMPROVE TREATMENT FOR MANY AIDS PATIENTS
According to AIDS Activists, New Data Lays Groundwork for WidewSpread
Application of New Treatment Strategies
Members of New York's Treatment Action Group (TAG), a non-profit AIDS treatment
advocacy organization, said today that new data from a government-organized study of
several AIDS treatments could help to revolutionize treatment for most people with AIDS by
validating new strategies for attacking HIV.
The study, known as ACTG 320, compared AZT in combination with 3TC, two older anti-HIV
drugs, to AZT, 3TC and Crixivan brand indinavir sulfate, a protease inhibitor manufactured
by Merck Pharmaceuticals. The study showed that, in patients with fewer than two hundred
T-cells, the three-drug combination could reduce the rate of AIDS-related diseases and death
by one-half over about nine months as compared to the two-drug combination.
CrixivanTh was granted accelerated approval by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in
March of 1996, based on evidence that the drug could dramatically lower levels of HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS, and improve levels of T-cells. While two other protease inhibitors
have been shown to confer clinical benefits to people with relatively advanced HIV disease,
ACTG 320 is the first study to evaluate a treatment regimen that is likely to reduce HIV levels
to below detectable limits.
Spencer Cox, Director of TAG's Antivirals Project, said, "ACTG 320 clearly demonstrates
that the combination of AZT, 3TC and Crixivan offers substantial clinical benefit to patients
with relatively advanced HIV disease as compared to the two-drug combination. In addition,
this landmark study is the first step towards validating some of the remarkable conceptual
breakthroughs in AIDS treatment that researchers, advocates and patients have been
pondering for the past year. By comparing a three-drug regimen that is likely to reduce HIV
levels below detectable limits, to a two-drug regimen that, while clinically effective, is less
likely to offer such dramatic antiviral benefits, this study is helping us to re-think the way we
use anti-HIV drugs: for now, the era of one-drug treatments with modestly potent antivirals is
over."
Cox added, "Still, it's important not to read these results as validating three drugs as opposed
to two or four. What is important here is that maximally suppressive antiviral combinations
offered superior clinical benefits."
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