How Integrase Inhibitors Have Dramatically Changed HIV Therapy

Joseph Eron, MD, professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, explains how integrase inhibitors have dramatically changed HIV therapy for the better.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

“Integrase inhibitors I think have dramatically changed our therapy [for HIV]. They are very effective; they have a very high therapeutic to toxicity ratio, meaning that you can get very high drug levels with very little toxicity. We have multiple integrase therapies that are combined into a single tablet. There are very nice data, some from our group in the University of North Carolina, showing that when a person starts on an integrase inhibitor-based therapy, the likelihood that they will have to switch, either due to virologic failure or some other problem, is very low and substantially better than our previous therapies.

They’re very potent, very well-tolerated, and for most of them, resistance emergence—for those who don’t have complete suppression—is either low or non-existent, at least in initial therapy. The newest one is bictegravir, which was just approved a couple of weeks ago in a combination tablet with 2 other very good drugs, and so, we’re excited to have that as another therapy.”