Sustiva efavirenz: Marketed

DuPont announced preliminary results in the first 450 of 1200 patients enrolled in a 48-week open-label comparison trial. Once daily Sustiva treatment produced reductions in viral load in a greater percentage of patients than Merck's Crixivan indinavir protease inhibitor, when each was given with BioChem Pharma Inc.'s Epivir 3TC and Glaxo Wellcome's Retrovir zidovudine AZT. However, DuPont noted that because 6 percent of patients in the Sustiva arm and 19 percent of patients in the Crixivan arm withdrew due to adverse events, assessment of relative efficacy in the trial is difficult. Nevertheless, 71 percent of patients in the Sustiva arm had <400 copies HIV RNA/mL at 48 weeks versus 48 percent of patients in the Crixivan arm, which was statistically significant. ...