Cobicistat-boosted darunavir in HIV-1-infected adults: week 48 results of a Phase IIIb, open-label single-arm trial (AIDS Research and Therapy)

Background: Cobicistat is an alternative pharmacoenhancer to ritonavir. In healthy volunteers, darunavir exposure was comparable when darunavir 800 mg once-daily was co-administered with cobicistat 150 mg once-daily (as single agents or a fixed-dose combination) vs. with ritonavir 100 mg once daily. Methods: This 48-week, Phase IIIb, single-arm, US multicenter study (NCT01440569) evaluated safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics of darunavir/cobicistat 800/150 mg once daily (as single agents) plus two investigator-selected nucleoside/tide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (N[t]RTIs) in HIV-1-infected adults. Patients had no darunavir resistance-associated mutations (RAMs), plasma viral load (VL) >=1000 HIV-1 RNA copies/ml, eGFR >=80 ml/min and genotypic sensitivity to the two N[t]RTIs. The primary endpoint was any treatment-emergent grade 3 or 4 adverse events (AEs) through Week 24. Results: The majority of the 313 intent-to-treat patients were treatment-naive (295/313; 94%), male (89%), White (60%) and received a tenofovir-based regimen (99%). Median baseline VL and CD4+ count overall were 4.8 log10 HIV-1 RNA copies/ml and 361 cells/mm3, respectively. Overall, 86% of patients (268/313) completed the study. The majority of discontinuations were for AEs (15/313; 5%). The incidence of treatment-emergent grade 3 or 4 AEs regardless of causality was 6% through Week 24 and 8% through Week 48. Most common AEs through Week 48 were diarrhea (27%) and nausea (23%), which were grade 1 or 2 in severity. Week 48 virologic response rates (% with VL