The US Food and Drug Administration announced last week that it has granted tentative approbal to a fixed dose triple combination of the antiretroviral drugs nevirapine, stavudine and lamivudine. The product is marketed by Cipla as Triomune, and will now be available for purchase by United States PEPFAR-funded treatment programmes worldwide (PEPFAR is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, founded in 2003 to deliver antiretroviral treatment and HIV prevention in developing countries).
Triomune is already one of the most widely used generic antiretroviral products in developing countries because it combines three drugs recommended for first-line therapy by the World Health Organization into one tablet.
According to the Boston Globe, generic antiretroviral drugs now account for almost 70% of PEPFAR-funded HIV treatment in Haiti, Nigeria and Zambia, three of the 15 countries targeted by the programme.