Long-acting injection a shot in the arm for GSK's HIV business

A long-acting injection developed by GlaxoSmithKline and given once a month has proved as effective as standard daily pills for controlling the AIDS virus, lifting prospects for the British drugmaker's key HIV business.

GSK's majority-owned ViiV Healthcare unit said on Wednesday the experimental two-drug injection of cabotegravir and rilpivirine maintained similar rates of viral suppression compared with a standard three-drug oral regimen, after 48 weeks of a clinical trial.

The result from the big Phase III study is a boost for GSK's goal of developing dual therapies that are easier to tolerate than conventional triple ones, and shares in GSK rose more than 1 percent. It follows recent positive data from combining two oral drugs.

GSK hopes its new approach will allow it to compete more effectively against Gilead Sciences, the US drugmaker that dominates the $26 billion-a-year HIV market.

Gilead currently has a market share of around 52 percent against GSK's 22 percent, but Deborah Waterhouse, who heads the British drugmaker's HIV unit, says she hopes to overtake her US rival by the mid-2020s.

That is a bold ambition, since many analysts have been expecting GSK to lose market share to Gilead's new triple drug Biktarvy, rather than see it gain ground.

Liberum analyst Roger Franklin, who rates GSK a 'buy', believes the company's dual-drug strategy has been under-appreciated by the market.