Gilead's Twice-Yearly Shot to Prevent HIV Succeeds in Late-Stage Trial (cnbc.com) 63
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC:
Gilead's experimental twice-yearly medicine to prevent HIV was 100% effective in a late-stage trial, the company said Thursday. None of the roughly 2,000 women in the trial who received the lenacapavir shot had contracted HIV by an interim analysis, prompting the independent data monitoring committee to recommend Gilead unblind the Phase 3 trial and offer the treatment to everyone in the study. Other participants had received standard daily pills.
The company expects to share more data by early next year, the article adds, and if its results are positive, the company could bring its drug to the market as soon as late 2025. (By Fridayt the company's stock price had risen nearly 12%.)
There's already other HIV-preventing options, the article points out, but they're taken by "only a little more than one-third of people in the U.S. who could benefit...according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Part of the problem?
"Daily pills dominate the market, but drugmakers are now focusing on developing longer-acting shots... Health policymakers and advocates hope longer-acting options could reach people who can't or don't want to take a daily pill and better prevent the spread of a virus that caused about 1 million new infections globally in 2022."
The company expects to share more data by early next year, the article adds, and if its results are positive, the company could bring its drug to the market as soon as late 2025. (By Fridayt the company's stock price had risen nearly 12%.)
There's already other HIV-preventing options, the article points out, but they're taken by "only a little more than one-third of people in the U.S. who could benefit...according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." Part of the problem?
"Daily pills dominate the market, but drugmakers are now focusing on developing longer-acting shots... Health policymakers and advocates hope longer-acting options could reach people who can't or don't want to take a daily pill and better prevent the spread of a virus that caused about 1 million new infections globally in 2022."
Only... (Score:2)
Only $6G/shot, twice yearly...
Re: Only... (Score:4, Interesting)
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In San Francisco at least, that will be subsidized. I assume other places as well.
If California offers to “subsidize” something, you’d be better off taking the cash price.
In Alaska.
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That sounds like a really well-informed opinion, not swayed by propaganda at all.
Oh yeah. Just tell the people living there that $7 gas and $20 minimum wage is just “propaganda”. I’m sure that excuse will work well in bankruptcy court.
You sound like a really well-manipulated west coast voter, not swayed by Californias special breed of politicians at all.
Venn Diagram HIV/Covid (Score:1)
I think HIV is associated with "The Gays" for a lot of people 40-ish years old and older, so getting a shot to prevent a disease that they would never get because they're not gay would factor in there somewhere.
I guess I'm really just wondering whether this will be politicized in the same way the Covid vaccines have been, and if that will be a barrier to adoption in addition to the cost.
Re: Venn Diagram HIV/Covid (Score:2)
Re:Venn Diagram HIV/Covid (Score:5, Informative)
Pretty sure HIV is still most prevalent among homosexuals in the United States. Hmm yup 70% of new infections were caused by homosexual men sleeping with one another:
https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics... [hiv.gov]
Meanwhile 16% of new infections were women sleeping with (probably bisexual) men, while 6% of new infections were men acquiring the disease from women.
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You daily reminder that "bug chasing" is a fetish that a sizable minority of homosexual men in US have.
There are actual academic papers on this. I still remember one where one guy with that fetish "explored it by going to Korean bath houses and having unprotected sex" and wrote a "scientific" paper on how it made him feel (sexually empowered). And that got passed ethics committees and peer review and got published.
Basic thing is that homosexual men are by far the most sexually liberated group in US, because
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"Sizeable minority" means what, exactly? Cite a study that estimates the incidence of such individuals.
In any group of sufficient size, there are always some who do not engage in best practices, but it is very often the case that these examples are brought up only when the group is marginalized, in order to paint all of them with that broad brush. If American attitudes about the COVID-19 pandemic has proven anything, people in general do many, many things that are not conducive to their health and threate
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>"Sizeable minority" means what, exactly?
Enough to cause a lot of mass infection events that baths are so well known for. And enough to be a massive and well understood meme in gay circles.
>is only something that began much later
High risk seeking behaviour is linked to high testosterone, which in turn is linked to being a male. High risk thrill is something that existed with us from before we became homo sapiens, and we have many cultural and even biological adaptations against it.
In fact the very eve
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You make these claims but provide zero evidence to support it, so you're just full of shit.
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Did you not just admit to there being a massive AIDS epidemic above yourself?
Or are you doing the far left "you need a study, a peer reviewed study, that must study this specific issue in great detail, and otherwise you're lying that sky is blue, because it could be purple with polka dots and birds aren't real"?
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That is an awful lot of text to try to dispute the fact that HIV in the west remains predominantly a disease of male homosexuals.
Re: Venn Diagram HIV/Covid (Score:2)
Re:Venn Diagram HIV/Covid (Score:5, Informative)
The trial referenced in the article was conducted entirely in cisgender women in two African countries, in which HIV transmission primarily occurs through heterosexual sex. Women were studied in the trial because they are more severely impacted by HIV infection with consequences related to pregnancy, childbirth, and infant mortality. A confirmatory trial in men who have sex with men (MSM) is underway but has not yet read out.
The findings of this trial are notable because it demonstrated superiority over daily oral Truvada: no one in the injection group was found to have contracted HIV during the study period. This suggests that treatment noncompliance is a main driver of PrEP failure, which is something we have known for some time; however, for the first time, we have clinical evidence that directly supports efficacy of a treatment policy of a twice-yearly injection, which improves compliance and therefore reduces the likelihood of multiple antiviral resistance. Moreover, we can anticipate that broadening PrEP treatment options should improve both patient access and outcomes, irrespective of the population. Should this drug be brought to market, it will absolutely help people around the world, even if there exist other options for PrEP. That was the whole objective of this study.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with COVID or anti-vaccine sentiment. PrEP is not a vaccine, and from a health economics and public health perspective, it has never been regarded as such, because PrEP requires monitoring for adverse drug reactions (mainly, renal and hepatic toxicity). As such, it would never be offered up as prophylaxis to the general population--the safety profile doesn't warrant it. Instead, the approach that has worked well is to focus on at-risk groups (i.e., MSM in developed nations, and cisgender women in developing nations with high prevalence of HIV). COVID is a highly contagious respiratory disease with an airborne mode of transmission, so although certain demographics are more likely to experience serious outcomes from infection, everyone is at risk.
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How can "MSM" be a risk group? Aren't we talking about adults? An adult is an adult is an adult. The definition of adult (or "being of age") is that you have full agency of your life. Adults are allowed to jump with broken parachutes if they want to, and no one is gonna stop them. It would be completely unacceptable to waste tax money on checking people's parachutes, and skydivers would never be considered a "risk group", because they are adults and skydiving is voluntary.
What is wrong with you?
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Smoking and alcohol consumption are voluntary. Why don't you ask your doctor or insurer if smokers or drinkers are considered risk groups for any diseases.
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Smokers and drinkers don't get a something like PReP preventively. Duh!
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What is a cisgender woman?
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Sis-gender. They are female, but only when speaking to another sista. When speaking to a man, they identify as trans-masculine xirgender 33rd degree of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
It's very simple, and necessary to specify each time we use the word "woman".
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Based on the hurdles I've had to overcome trying to "get tested for everything" in my youth I am fairly convinced that most people do in fact not get themselves checked for everything (it was always expensive as fuck too).
I had to argue specifically for HIV testing several times because the doctors felt it was a waste of time unless I was having sex with men or using IV drugs.
My next question would always be "what kind of answers and honesty would you want from a partner? One of them actually even said "It
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A few of the hardcore religious types see stds as a form of punishment for those who engage in venal sin. They will not be pleased.
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"Venal" is not a word. Did you mean venereal? If you meant venial, you were wrong: Catholicism holds that sex either outside or before marriage is a mortal sin. The Bible lumps that in "sexual immorality", translated from the Greek porneia [neverthirsty.org].
I suspect most hardcore religious types support medicine to protect against HIV, which is a very nasty disease: love the sinner, hate the sin.
Re: Do Conservatives hate this development? (Score:2)
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Fine: Venal is the wrong word, unless the hypothetical concerns relate purely to child prostitution. The rest of my comment stands.
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Venial actually, that was a speeling error.
https://www.catholic.com/magaz... [catholic.com]
Anyway most sins of lust are considered by Western religious conservatives to be redeemable and not really as bad as say, rape or murder. Though you may have trouble getting any of them to admit it public.
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Publicly.
As to whether religious conservatives support cures for stds, no, generally they do not, as they see them as an invitation to commit further sin. See: HPV vaccine controversy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
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A few of the hardcore religious types see stds as a form of punishment for those who engage in venal sin. They will not be pleased.
To look at it another way, this vaccine is still another Darwinian filter to cull the anti-science people from the herd.
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> I hate to politicize things that had no politics in 'em, but I wonder how much Conservatives hate such developments?
It doesn't seem like you hate to politicize this at all, which is a tragic way treat a major medical advance.
You can find 0.00001% of any group with abhorrent views.
Besides, it's wrong on the polisci - the rise of Socialism in America is strongly linked with evangelical Christianity, so go blame them if you want to get political. Reagan's brief dalliance with the Evangelicals was never po
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Most ordinary people of every political faction would much rather eradicate a deadly disease from the planet and this might be one step towards that.
I want to eradicate AIDS disease but I don't think this is a step towards that. This discovery is interesting to target risk population in wealthy countries. But AIDS has 14% prevalence in South Africa and other countries. To eradicate a disease that has already reached a large fraction of the population, one needs nationwide vaccination campaigns that go down the last village deep in the forest, like we are doing for poliomyelitis. You can't go twice a year in every African village to inject them with prop
Can We All Just Appreciate how Amazing this is? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an incredible advance in Medical treatment for a horrible disease. Within my lifetime, I have already seen two Pandemics (HIV and Covid) occur leading to major medical advances that will help treat later pandemics. We are already seeing immune therapy advances in the treatments of multiple cancers. And treatments for Malaria are now being deployed.
My congratulations to the Gilead Team on such an amazing treatment. Good Job.
Re: Can We All Just Appreciate how Amazing this is (Score:2)
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Yes, well done to the scientists who made it happen.
What we need now is for governments to put up the money to get it widely deployed as quickly as possible.
Widescale prophylactic anti-virals ... great idea! (Score:2)
Not quite on the level of antiviral use in poultry, but still a great idea if you dislike effective medicine.
Small molecule anti-viral/bacterial/fungal are of temporary efficiency at the best of times once humans get their hands on them, but this will accelerate it.
How do they know? (Score:2)
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PURPOSE 1, a Phase 3, double-blind, randomized study, is evaluating the safety and efficacy of twice-yearly, subcutaneous lenacapavir for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and once-daily oral Descovy® (emtricitabine 200mg and tenofovir alafenamide 25mg; F/TAF) in more than 5,300 cisgender women and adolescent girls aged 16-25 across 25 sites in South Africa and three sites in Uganda. The drugs are being tested in parallel, with one group receiving twice-yearly lenacapavir and one group taking once-daily
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what is a cisgender woman? Stop using words like cisgender as that isn't a word, these woman are women, not cisgender women..
You using it three times and acknowledging it's a word, then telling me it isn't a word?
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Well, of course I know some nuts use it, but those are the same nuts that actually started it because they were offended, and now I am offended by being refered as a cisgender while I'm not a cisgender male, I'm a male.
Stop this woke nonsense.
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Well, of course I know some nuts use it, but those are the same nuts that actually started it because they were offended, and now I am offended by being refered as a cisgender while I'm not a cisgender male, I'm a male.
Stop this woke nonsense.
You posted a question. I posted the relevant quote. In an alternative reality you could have just said thanks. But here we are.
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Gilead? (Score:2)
Really?
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Yeah, it's not a great look these days. But according to Wikipedia they were founded less than two years after "The Handmaid's Tale" was written. How were they to know that choosing some random biblical reference might develop negative connotations in the future?
Or... (Score:1)
....and I know this is a crazy idea, maybe just don't fuck someone until you've known them well enough to know they don't have a chronic disease?
I know, it's inconceivable.
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....and I know this is a crazy idea, maybe just don't fuck someone until you've known them well enough to know they don't have a chronic disease? I know, it's inconceivable.
I know right, it's not like rape or cheating exists. Those are myths.
Maybe think a bit, I know, it's inconceivable.
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Right, because the majority of HIV cases are from rape & infidelity.
Maybe you want to look up 'faulty generalization' fallacy. /rollseyes
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What causes the majority of cases has precisely zero to do with why an individual would get a vaccine.
Maybe you should look up things like people being terrified of flying because they fear a crash, but are fine with the much more dangerous activity of driving to the airport in a car. /RollsThemBack
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Let me recap.
The OP article tangentially asserted that this was an amazing breakthrough because only 1/3 of the people who could be taking HIV preventative product weren't doing so, and this would offer them another option for avoiding HIV.
I asserted, somewhat tongue in cheek, that maybe people wouldn't need HIV avoidance drugs quite so much if they weren't fucking indiscriminately like rabbits. This is an inarguable fact: having less indiscriminate sex makes it less likely you get HIV.
Your reply - which
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Let me recap.
Must I?
The OP article tangentially asserted that this was an amazing breakthrough because only 1/3 of the people who could be taking HIV preventative product weren't doing so, and this would offer them another option for avoiding HIV.
I wish your recap wasn't wrong in the first portion, but okay. the summary ACTUALLY SAYS: but they're taken by "only a little more than one-third of people in the U.S. who could benefit". Not your assertion that only 1/3 WEREN'T doing so. With such a simple mistake, can we trust any more of your recap? Lets see.
I asserted, somewhat tongue in cheek
Absolutely agree you were going for the "It was only a joke" route.
, that maybe people wouldn't need HIV avoidance drugs quite so much if they weren't fucking indiscriminately like rabbits. This is an inarguable fact: having less indiscriminate sex makes it less likely you get HIV.
Absolutely agree less sex = less likely to get HIV. Never said otherwise. What makes you believe this matters when it's