Receive free Disease Control and Prevention updates
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest news disease control and prevention There is news every morning.
Drugmaker ViiV says an annual vaccine-like drug to prevent HIV could be ready after 2030, changing the way the virus is managed that has persisted for more than four decades. The epidemic has killed nearly 40 million people.
Although there is no vaccine to treat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) reduces the rate of transmission by providing protection to people who may be exposed to the virus.
Most PrEP therapies rely on oral medications taken daily or when unprotected sex is likely to occur, but the potential emergence of preventive drugs with vaccine properties could significantly reduce the burden on patients and health authorities around the world.
HIV drug developer ViiV is accelerating research on VH184, an antiretroviral drug designed to block the action of integrase, the enzyme that inserts the HIV virus’s genetic code into the host cell’s DNA.
Kimberly Smith, head of research and development at ViiV, said long-acting drugs that are administered every 12 months will soon be available: “I can’t say exactly when, but it won’t be too far from the end of this decade. I believe it is possible.”
“(VH184) showed a very long half-life in preclinical studies,” she told the Financial Times. “We need to determine whether this long half-life applies to humans.”
Long-acting medications are injected into the muscle monthly or less frequently, releasing chemicals over a longer period of time. Meg Doherty, head of the World Health Organization’s HIV program, said ViiV’s pipeline of long-acting drugs was “exciting” but stressed the need to ensure low-cost, universal coverage.
“It is important to continue to ensure that these (HIV) treatment options and new approaches are available to all people, including people living in low- and middle-income countries,” she said.
ViiV, GlaxoSmithKline’s majority-owned joint venture with US-based Pfizer and Japan’s Shionogi, told investors last week it had targeted sales growth from 2021 to 2026 Forecasts were raised to 6% to 8% as its bets on long-acting drugs offset that. Its best-selling oral drug dolutegravir faces a “patent cliff,” a loss of exclusivity.
The company has two long-acting drugs based on cabotegravir, another integrase inhibitor, that have received regulatory approval: Cabenuva, in combination with another molecule, to treat patients infected with HIV, and its PrEP drug Apretude. These parenteral products are usually taken once a month or every two months.
Smith said people have started saying Apretude is “almost like a vaccine.” . . You basically get the shot and then you don’t think about it anymore, unlike having to take something every day. ”
“Certainly, you know, the longer we go in between, the more intense it feels,” she added, likening it to the annual flu and Covid-19 vaccines. The US company Gilead Sciences is also developing long-acting HIV treatments.
Deborah Waterhouse, chief executive of ViiV, said there was significant use of long-acting PrEP in the United States, but despite regulatory approval, the situation in the European Union was more complicated.
Reimbursement must be negotiated individually with each country, and while some governments have shown interest, many have not placed orders because they can control HIV cases with cheaper oral treatments.
Despite signing licenses to produce generic drugs, access to long-acting drugs remains spotty in poorer countries with higher HIV infection rates.Doctors Without BordersRefusal to sign confidentiality agreement Pricing based on access agreements for Mozambique and other countries required by ViiV.
Waterhouse said it was seeking a “middle ground” with Doctors Without Borders and finalizing a solution “because we want them to be partners”.
“It would be a shame if there was a repeat of what we are seeing now with (long-acting PrEP), where people with the highest HIV burden in Africa have little access to it for prevention,” said the WHO’s Doherty.
Svlook
