MERCK RELEASES INTERIM DATA FROM ARV COMBINATION TRIAL

Merck announced interim data from an ongoing trial of its candidate drug MK-0518 showing that the drug, as part of combination therapy, achieved a comparable viral load reduction to Bristol-Myers Squibb's efavirenz combination in HIV patients.

MK-0518 belongs to a new class of investigational antiretroviral therapy agents called integrase inhibitors that inhibit the insertion of the HIV viral DNA into human DNA.

The 24-week data of the Phase II trial revealed that Merck's MK-0518 combined with Gilead Science's tenofovir and GlaxoSmithKline's lamivudine reduced the viral load in blood to undetectable levels in 85 to 95 percent of patients, compared with efavirenz combined with tenofovir and lamivudine in 92 percent of patients. This effect was observed at all four doses of MK-0518 -- 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg and 600 mg -- administered orally twice daily in previously untreated patients as well as HIV-infected patients with documented genotypic susceptibility to tenofovir, lamivudine and efavirenz.

In addition, patients given the MK-0518 cocktail achieved viral load reduction earlier than patients on the efavirenz-based regimen. The data will be presented at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.