By Marie Rosenthal, MS
Of the 59 new drugs approved in 2018, 14 had an infectious disease indication. Antiretrovirals and antibiotics were the leaders this year.
The strong year for HIV drug approvals started with bictegravir/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide (Biktarvy, Gilead), the first of five HIV medications to pass FDA muster. BIC/FTC/TAF is a once-daily, single tablet that combines the novel, unboosted integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) bictegravir, with FTC/TAF (Descovy,