DISCOVER Study Showing TAF/FTC Noninferiority Is 'Encouraging'

Segment Description: Paul Sax, MD, clinical director in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital, names the DISCOVER study as one of the highlights of CROI 2019.

Interview transcript (modified slightly for readability):

Contagion®: What has been your biggest highlight of the conference so far?

Dr. Sax: "One of the highlights of the conference was the presentation of the DISCOVER study, which compared TDF/FTC for pre-exposure prophylaxis to TAF/FTC for pre-exposure prophylaxis. The TAF/FTC formulation has been shown to be safer from a renal and bone perspective. Encouragingly, this study showed that TAF/FTC was noninferior to TDF/FTC for prevention in high-risk individuals. I want to emphasize that both treatment arms were extremely successful. There were very few incident HIV infections. It just shows that in the era of very effective preventive efforts, new entries to HIV prevention have a very, very high bar to reach."

The study, “The Phase 3 DISOVER Study: Daily F/TAF or F/TDF For HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis,” was presented at CROI 2019 on Wednesday, March 6, 2019 in Seattle, Washington.