HA-1A (Centoxin - Centocor), a monoclonal IgM antibody against endotoxin from gram-negative bacteria, may soon be approved for marketing by the US Food and Drug Administration. Commercially available in Europe, HA-1A has been used in the USA as an investigational drug. E5 (Xomen - Xoma), another monoclonal IgM antibody against endotoxin, is also available here for investigational use.

Linagliptin (Tradjenta) and metformin (Glucophage, and others) are now available as a fixed-dose combination (Jentadueto – Boehringer Ingelheim/Lilly) for oral treatment of type 2 diabetes in adults. Metformin is generally the preferred first-line agent for treatment of type 2 diabetes, but most patients eventually require treatment with multiple drugs. Linagliptin is a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DDP-4) inhibitor like sitagliptin (Januvia) and saxagliptin (Onglyza). Both sitagliptin and saxagliptin are also available in fixed-dose combinations with...

Voclosporin (Lupkynis – Aurinia), an oral calcineurin inhibitor, has been approved by the FDA for use in combination with the antimetabolite immunosuppressant mycophenolate mofetil (Cellcept, and generics) and a corticosteroid for treatment of adults with active lupus nephritis. It is the first calcineurin inhibitor to be approved in the US for this indication. Tacrolimus (Prograf, and others) and cyclosporine (Neoral, and others), the other available systemic calcineurin inhibitors, are approved for prophylaxis of organ rejection in transplant patients.

The FDA has approved ritlecitinib (Litfulo – Pfizer), an oral JAK and TEC kinase family inhibitor, for treatment of severe alopecia areata in patients ≥12 years old. Ritlecitinib is the second oral drug to be approved in the US for treatment of severe alopecia areata; baricitinib (Olumiant), a JAK inhibitor, is approved only for use in adults.

Antiretroviral therapy is recommended for all HIV-infected patients, both to reduce the risk of disease progression and to prevent transmission of the virus to others. Various guidelines for treatment of HIV infection are available.

Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) is a common cause of death in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). PCP is the first serious opportunistic infection in more than 60% of patients with AIDS, and about 80% of AIDS patients develop PCP at least once (AE Glatt et al, N Engl J Med, 318:1439, June 2, 1988). Many studies using drugs to prevent PCP in patients with AIDS have recently been reported.

Every pharmaceutical drug is a dose-dependent poison. This article describes the clinical presentation and treatment of some dangerous overdoses commonly reported in adults.

The FDA has approved Biktarvy (Gilead), a once-daily, fixed-dose combination of bictegravir, a new integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI), and the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide (TAF), for treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults. The new combination is indicated for use in patients who are antiretroviral-naive or who have been virologically suppressed on a stable antiretroviral regimen for ≥3 months with no history of treatment failure and no known substitutions associated with resistance to any component of the...

Four new drugs have become available in the USA for HIV infection or its complications. Nevirapine (Viramune - Roxane), intravenous cidofovir (Vistide - Gilead), and amphotericin B oral suspension (Fungizone Oral Suspension - Bristol-Myers Squibb) have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration; nelfinavir (Viracept - Agouron) is currently available only through an "Expanded Access Program."

The FDA has approved tocilizumab (Actemra – Genentech; RoActemra in Europe) for intravenous (IV) treatment of adult patients with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis who have had an inadequate response to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors.