Therapy for HIV infection and Aids has fallen into a series of phases, each lasting for about a decade. The first began with the launch of the original Aids medicine AZT in 1987, just six years after medical science recognised the disease. The second started in 1996, when drug combinations known as highly active antiretroviral therapy or Haart became available. Arguably, this year marks the start of a third phase with the launch of Atripla – Haart in a single daily tablet.

Atripla is the culmination of a trend over the past five years to combine the vast numbers of pills that patients on Haart had to take in the late 1990s – often as many as 20 per day – into fewer capsules. It contains two compounds developed by Gilead, a large Californian biotechnology company that has emerged as a leader in the Aids drug market, and one from Bristol-Myers Squibb of the US.