Trending News Today: New PrEP Approach Reduces Number of Pills Needed

Health officials in San Francisco are promoting a new strategy for administering pre-exposure prophylaxis for those at risk of contracting HIV, Kaiser Health News reported. According to the article, the new approach, called “2-1-1”, requires taking just 4 pills timed to a specific sexual encounter—2 pills within 2 to 24 hours before sex and 1 on each of the following 2 days. Proponents say the approach can work well for those whose encounters are intermittent and predictable, the article reported.

Officials with the FDA have granted Orphan Drug Designation to Mustang Bio’s MB-102, an investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), The American Journal of Managed Care reported. According to the article, MB-102 is engineered using a patient’s T-cells to recognize and eliminate CD123-expressing tumors. MB-102 has demonstrated complete responses in patients with AML in low doses during a first in-human clinical trial, the article reported.

Novartis’ sacubitril/valsartan (Entresto) failed in a clinical trial evaluating the heart failure drug for use in patients with preserved ejection fraction type of heart disease, Reuters reported. According to the article, the Paragon HF trial, which included 4822 patients, compared sacubitril/valsartan with valsartan (Diovan). Novartis officials said that sacubitril/valsartan narrowly missed statistical significance for its composite primary endpoint of reducing cardiovascular death and total heart failure hospitalization, the article reported.