The Late Presenter Treatment Optimisation Study

The effectiveness of HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART) has consistently improved over the years. This is largely due to newer drugs having improved antiviral effectiveness and more tolerable side effect profiles; resulting in better viral suppression and improved treatment adherence. On the other hand, most recent clinical trials look at the effectiveness of ART in patients with less advanced disease. These patients usually suffer from less related diseases, drug-drug interactions, and other risks for treatment failure. Outside of these trials, the number of patients who present to clinic with a more developed advanced HIV infection, known as 'late presenters', remains high across Europe. Trials for these patients have tended to focus on the time of starting treatment and the management of infections. Much less is known about which ART treatments perform best for these late presenting patients; particularly in terms of virus suppression, immune system recovery, side effects and improvement of AIDs related diseases. No specific drug combinations have been compared in appropriate clinical trials before, and the international guidelines for first line treatment judge all therapies as equal standard of care for these patients. The investigators anticipate that Integrase inhibitor containing regimes may be better suited to patients with advanced disease, due to their beneficial side-effect profile and ability to rapidly decrease viral load levels. Therefore the investigators are conducting this clinical trial to compare an integrase inhibitor regime, against a protease inhibitor regime in patients with advanced HIV infection. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the non-inferiority of Biktarvy® against Symtuza®. Patients will be recruited from sites across Europe, and randomized onto either arm of the study. After randomisation onto either treatment regime, patients will attend approximately 9 follow-up visits over the course of a year. During these visits, patients will be asked to complete two questionnaires, to assess their quality of life and HIV symptoms. They will also be asked to provide a number of blood samples. These samples are to ensure that the patient is not resistant to the study drug and that their disease is not worsening. Samples to test for study drug resistance will be shipped to a laboratory for analysis in the even that the patient experiences virological failure. Biktarvy® will be supplied from Gilead and Symtuza® will be provided by Janssen Pharmaceuticals.