Gilead’s success in providing an effective once a day drug for HIV has limited the development of new HIV drugs. There are fewer drugs in the pipeline now because the market for drugs that need to be taken multiple times a day is much smaller when there is a once a day option. This poses a problems with the high mutation rate of HIV and the great potential for resistance. Last year, Atripla, a three drug combination of truvada and Sustiva captured about 40% of the HIV drug market. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that there were about 100 drugs in various stages of testing in 2006 but there were only 60 drugs in testing in 2010. Unfortunately, the great success of recent HIV drugs is leading to declines in research because the market is smaller and the competition is fierce.
Hannah Harrison
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/03/13/bloomberg1376-LHPT9W07SXKX01-6NLHS2MMBPB2I1OSLRHQSGK3RK.DTL&type=printable
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