Submitted by Aspergillus Administrator on 2 October 2013
The Wall Street Journal have reported that Astellas, developer of a new antifungal drug isavuconazole, have published some results from their phase III trials on the treatment of invasive aspergillosis that show its promise in comparison to voriconazole.
In particular in a sample of 500 patients there was 7% lower mortality and only 40% drug related adverse events with isavuconazole versus 60% drug related adverse events for voriconazole, so there may well be advantages to using isavuconazole for the treatment of invasive aspergillosis as although there is little difference in mortality there may be fewer side effects for the patient. NB significant numbers of patients have to stop taking voriconazole due to excessive side effects.
Overall effectiveness at the end of the study (42 days) was comparable and certainly no worse than using voriconazole – so effectively we can conclude isavuconazole is no worse in terms of outcome for the patient and may well cause fewer adverse events so may be tolerable by more patients.
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