Quick Hits: New Strawberry-Flavored H.I.V. Drugs Improve Infant Compliance

According to a recent article from The New York Times, roughly 80,000 young children die from AIDS each year, partly because their medications are difficult to take. The current options are either hard pills or nasty-tasting syrups, neither or which are particularly desirable for kids. However, Indian generic drug manufacturer Cipla just announced a new formula that makes the drugs taste like strawberry, thereby increasing the likelihood of compliance.

The new drug, Quadrimune, comes in small granules the size of sugar grains that can be stirred in with milk or sprinkled atop cereal. This isn’t the first contribution Cipla has made to the fight against AIDS; about 20 years ago, they revolutionized AIDS drugs when they priced them at just $1 a day. The new pediatric version will be priced the same. Quadrimune is still under review by the FDA, which is likely to happen by mid-2020.