Loading...
Effective influenza treatment should help individual patients recover more quickly and limit their infectivity, thus reducing the size of local outbreaks. A new antiviral presently undergoing FDA review appears to deliver on the first objective but not necessarily the second.
Two manufacturer-conducted trials, reported by the same group, evaluated the clinical efficacy of the investigational drug baloxavir, an influenza polymerase inhibitor. The first, a phase 2 dose-finding trial, randomized 389 adults aged 20 to 64 with respiratory symptoms to a single dose of baloxavir (10 mg, 20 mg, or 40 mg) or placebo. Median time to symptom resolution was 78 hours in the placebo group, 54 in the 10 mg group, 51 in the 20 mg group, and 50 in the 40 mg …