The Power of ONE
by Jay Barcelon

download

Note: It is very important as a pharmacist to keep updated with new drug developments and releases to better serve your patients. It truly is a job that requires one to be a life-long learner.

A rising trend within the field of Pharmacy is the move towards combination drug therapy. Studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between patient compliance and the amount of medication taken. It makes sense. It is difficult to keep track of medication, especially when one has to take several different kinds of medication throughout the day, each with a different regiment. The rising trend of combination drug therapy is prevalent in the treatment of such disease states as cold/allergies, hypertension, and HIV.

Drug companies such as GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer have released new combination medication for the treatment of HIV/AIDs. This particular disease state is difficult to manage in that patients are typically prescribed a cocktail of drugs each geared towards producing a certain effect. (Exforge®) A Pharmacist must also take care into prescribing the correct Anti-retroviral medication in that there are several adverse reactions resulting from the simultaneous administration of HIV medication.  Although there are several different HIV drugs on the market, many of them interact with one another thus prescription of such medication must be monitored. (Explain how HIV Medication Treatment Works)GlaxoSmithKline and Shire Pharmaceuticals had a joint venture to release a new HIV drug called, Combivir®, which is a combination drug of Lamivudine and Zidovudine. Zidovudine is a HIV Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor and Lamivudine is an obligate chain-terminator in DNA synthesis. Both drugs have different effects on the virus and hinder various segments of the HIV replication process. (Note: GSK and Shire only developed a way to combine two existing drugs into one more efficient drug.)

 I just wanted to emphasize that Pharmaceuticals, especially Pharmaceutical Industry is not limited to the research and development of potential drug compounds from organic synthesis. Simply finding a safer way to administer medication to the patient is as much of a milestone as releasing a revolutionary new drug.