This op-ed, written by PrEP4All Executive Director, Jeremiah Johnson, and Amy Killelea, Consultant, appeared in Health Affairs on August 26, 2024. 

In June, Gilead Sciences announced impressive early results from its PURPOSE 1 trial, which showed 100 percent efficacy of lenacapavir in preventing new HIV infections among cisgender women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lenacapavir is being investigated as an injectable antiretroviral medication that can be taken once every six months as preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV. This is a marked shift from current PrEP options, which are only available as a once-daily pill or a bimonthly injection.

Once again, the HIV community finds itself at a scientific breakthrough moment. And once again, it remains an open question as to whether it will also prove to be a breakthrough moment for equitable access.

We have been down this road before. It was not so long ago that the very same drug manufacturer released similarly jaw dropping clinical trial results first for Truvada and then Descovy, the first two medications approved for the prevention of HIV; it led to widespread speculation of the end of HIV as an epidemic. And yet, more than a decade after the first approval for PrEP in the United States, we still see significant disparities in getting PrEP to communities of color and cisgender women in the US.

Health care advocates are already concerned that past will once again be prologue when it comes to this new PrEP modality, and there is pressure on the company to make commitments that could change all too predictable outcomes on disparate outcomes.

Read more at: https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/new-drug-could-change-hiv-prevention-landscape-but-only-fair-price-tag