Once-daily pill could simplify HIV trea tment
Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences have combined many H.I.V. drugs into a single pill Sometimes the best medicine is more than one kind of medicine. Malaria, tuberculosis and H.I.V./AIDS,2 for example, are all treated with ____1____ of drugs. But that can mean a lot of pills to take. It would be ____2____ if drug companies combined all the medicines into a single pill, taken just once a day.
Now, two companies say they have done that for people just ____3____ treatment for H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The companies are Bristol-Myers Squibb and Gilead Sciences. They have ____4____ a single pill that combines three drugs currently on the market.3 Bristol-Myers Squibb sells one of them ____5____ the name of Sustiva.4 Gilead combined the ____6____, Emtriva and Viread, into a single pill in two thousand four.
Combining drugs involves more than ____7____ issues. It also involves issues of competition ____8____ the drugs are made by different companies. The new once-daily pill is the result of ____9____ is described as the first joint venture agreement of its kind in the treatment of H.I.V.
In January the New England Journal of Medicine5 published a study of the new pill. Researchers compared its ____10____ to6 that of the widely used combination of Sustiva and Combivir. Combivir ____11____ two drugs, AZT7 and 3TC.8 The researchers say that after one year of treatment, the new pill suppressed H.I.V. levels in more patients and with ____12____ side effects.9 Gilead paid for the study. Professor Joel Gallant at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, led the research. He is a paid adviser to Gilead and Bri Squibb as well as the maker of Combivir, GlaxoSmithKline.
Glaxo Smith Kline reacted ____13____ the findings by saying that a single study is of limited value. It says the effectiveness of Combivir has been shown in each of more than fifty studies.
The price of the new once-daily pill has not been announced. But Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb say they will provide it at reduced cost to developing countries. They plan in the next few months to ask the United States Food and Drug Administration10 to ____14____ the new pill.
There are limits to who could take it because of the different drugs it contains. For example, ____15____ women are told not to take Sustiva because of the risk of birth disorders.11 Experts say more than forty million people around the world are living with H.I.V.
词汇:
malaria n. 疟疾
tuberculosis n. 结核(病)
joint adj. 联合的,共同的
suppress vt. 抑制
pregnant adj. 妊娠的,有孕的
注释:
1.HIV(human immunodeficiency virus ):人免疫缺陷病毒
2.AIDS(acquired immunodeficiency syndrome ):获得性免疫缺陷综合征,艾滋病
3.(be / come)on the market:出售
4.Sustiva以及后面出现的Emtriva、Viread和Combivir都是治疗艾滋病药物的商品名。
5.New England Journal of Medicine:新英格兰医药杂志。New England 是美国东北六州(Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island 和 Connecticut )的总称。
6.英国英语中compare with是“与…相比较”的意思,compare to是“把……比作……” 的意思,但在美国英语中compare to也有compare with的意思,这里就是“把……与…相比较”的意思。
7.AZT(Azidothymidine ):叠氨胸苷(能抑制引起艾滋病的人免疫缺陷病毒)
8.3TC:拉夫米定(一种胞嘧啶核苷衍生物,能抑制乙肝病毒和人免疫缺陷病毒的逆转录酶的活性,改善肝脏组织的病变)
9.side effect:副作用
10.United States Food and Drug Administration(FDA):美国食品与药品管理局
11. birth disorder:先天性疾病
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