Drug company looks to 4-in-1 pill

A major pharmaceutical firm is to begin trialling a four-in-one pill to treat AIDS, it has emerged.

Gilead is confident that the tests will begin in the second half of this year, according to Bloomberg.

In an interview, the company's president John Milligan said that the new Quad pill would combine four of the company's own drugs, including existing dual product Truvada plus a compound called elvitegravir which blocks an enzyme crucial to the disease's entering human genes.

Milligan told the news agency: "The fixed dose Quad pill is the most exciting thing we’re working on."

The drug will also include a booster medicine developed by the company. The main benefit of the combined pill would be lessening the side effects of Truvada on the patient's nervous system, which can include hallucinations.

Milligan said that the US Food and Drug Administration was being consulted about the nature of the trial.