Gilead to seek approval yet this year for HIV-fighting Quad pill

Gilead Sciences Inc. will file for regulatory approval of its four-in-one, HIV-fighting Quad pill by the end of the year — rather than first-quarter 2012 — after a new study showed the drug was as effective as another combination.
In the third of four studies involving the Quad or its ingredients, Foster City-based Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD) said 90 percent of patients taking the Quad treatment saw a reduction in AIDS virus levels, or “viral load.” That compared with 87 percent of patients dosed with a combination of Gilead’s Truvada, the Bristol-Myers Squibb protease inhibitor atazanavir, or Reyataz, and the Abbott Laboratories booster Norvir, or ritonavir.