Two-Drug Approaches for HIV Treatment

Segment Description: Paul Edward Sax, MD, clinical director, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School; clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discusses 2-drug approaches for treatment of HIV, including dolutegravir + lamivudine.

Interview transcript: (modified slightly for readability)

Contagion®: If approved what would dolutegravir + lamivudine would bring to clinicians and patients?

Sax: Dolutegravir lamivudine is another interesting concept for treating HIV both as initial therapy and also for people who have viral suppression. So, a 2-drug approach to treating HIV could potentially offer benefits in safety — because you're not exposing people to as many drugs – as well as in cost.

And so, we've done some work modeling showing that 2-drug treatment with dolutegravir and lamivudine is likely to be highly cost effective for both people starting therapy and for people who are already successfully treated.

We're very much eagerly awaiting the results of a phase 3 study called TANGO. TANGO is looking at dolutegravir plus lamivudine in people with stable suppressed HIV who are receiving a TAF based regimen and comparing those 2 strategies.