Pharmacokinetics of darunavir at 900 milligrams and ritonavir at 100 milligrams once daily when coadministered with efavirenz at 600 milligrams once daily in healthy volunteers.

Ritonavir-boosted darunavir with efavirenz may be considered a nucleoside-sparing regimen for treatment-naïve HIV-infected patients. However, the pharmacokinetics of this combination administered once daily have not been studied. We conducted a three-period interaction study with healthy volunteers. The subjects were given darunavir at 900 mg with ritonavir at 100 mg once daily for 10 days. Efavirenz at 600 mg once daily was added for 14 days. Darunavir-ritonavir was then stopped and efavirenz alone was given for 14 days. At the end of each period, blood was taken predosing and for up to 24 h postdosing to measure the drug concentrations. We recruited seven males and five females ages 24 to 49 years and weighing 50 to 83 kg. The darunavir trough concentrations were reduced after efavirenz administration (geometric mean ratio [GMR], 0.43; 90% confidence interval [CI], 0.32 to 0.57]; P < 0.001). The mean darunavir trough concentrations were 1,180 ng/ml (standard deviation, 1,138 ng/ml) after efavirenz administration, but all darunavir trough concentrations were above the 50% effective concentration (EC(50)) of 55 ng/ml for the wild-type virus. For darunavir, the area under the concentration-time curve from 0 to 24 h (AUC(0-24)) (GMR, 0.86; 90% CI, 0.75 to 0.97; P = 0.05) and the half-life (GMR, 0.56; 90% CI, 0.49 to 0.65; P < 0.001) were also significantly reduced. The darunavir peak concentrations were not significantly changed (GMR, 0.92; 90% CI, 0.82 to 1.03; P = 0.23). The ritonavir trough concentrations (GMR, 0.46; 90% CI, 0.33 to 0.63; P = 0.001), AUC(0-24) (GMR, 0.74; 90% CI, 0.64 to 0.86; P = 0.004), and half-life (GMR, 0.80; 90% CI, 0.75 to 0.86; P < 0.001) were also significantly reduced. The efavirenz half-life was significantly longer when it was coadministered with darunavir-ritonavir than when it was given alone (GMR, 1.66; 90% CI, 1.24 to 2.23; P = 0.01), but there were no differences in the efavirenz trough or peak concentration or AUC(0-24) when it was coadministered with darunavir-ritonavir. Efavirenz reduced the trough concentrations of darunavir significantly, but the concentrations remained above the EC(50) for the wild-type virus. This regimen should be evaluated with treatment-naïve patients with no preexisting resistance.