First All-Inclusive AIDS Pill Approved by the FDA

Currently, AIDS patients must take a complicated regimen of many different kinds of pills to ward off the virus. But today the FDA approved the first "one and only" AIDS pill, which combines the other drugs into one pill. Called Atripla, it is a combo of Sustiva and Truvada (which itself two kinds of drugs), making it 4-drugs-in-one. (More below the fold....)

While 10 years ago, AIDs patients had to take as many as 25 pills per day, this new drug simplifies the drug regimen which in turn increases chances for correct dosing, and thus longer life.

"You're getting the first and only medication to contain a complete triple-drug once-daily cocktail contained in a single tablet," said Bristol-Myers spokesman Eric Miller.