Why weren the medications originally designed as once-a-day drugs?
Initially some of the drugs achieved very favorable treatment levels, which allowed them to be dosed once a day. Other drugs couldn’t be given once a day because they wouldn’t be able to achieve adequate levels throughout the day. But additional research has found that this can be accomplished by improving the way the drug is put together. “Additional research into the treatment levels achieved by the drug in important areas of the body have also led to our being able to use some of these drugs as once-a-day drugs,” says Boyle. What drugs are available in the once-daily formulation? All of the main classes of antiretroviral medications have drugs that have been approved for once-a-day treatment. The first drug that was approved for once-a-day, Sustiva, is a non-nucleoside. Later, drugs in the nucleoside analog class were approved and now there are medicines in the protease inhibitor class that are taken once-a-day. There are also a number of drugs that are in development or being resea
