UN urges Gilead to ‘make history’ with game-changing HIV drug, ET HealthWorld

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UN urges Gilead to ‘make history’ with game-changing **** *****, ET HealthWorld

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Geneva: Gilead could bring the AIDS pandemic towards an end if the US pharmaceutical giant opens up access to its game-changing new **** *****, the head of UNAIDS told AFP.

Winnie Byanyima urged Gilead to “make history” by allowing generic manufacturing of Lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable antiretroviral medication used to treat **** patients.

She urged Gilead to open up Lenacapavir to the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool international organisation, whereby cheaper generic versions could be sold under licence in low- and middle-income nations.

Whatever the financial rewards of creating Lenacapavir, the renown of being the company that conquered the AIDS pandemic would be greater, Byanyima said.

“Gilead has an opportunity to take us closer to ending AIDS as a public health threat,” Byanyima told AFP in an interview at UNAIDS’ headquarters in Geneva.

“Gilead has an opportunity to save the world. To save the world, literally,” from the pandemic.

“They can be the company that wins a Nobel Prize, for example. Reward doesn’t come just through money. There is also recognition… imagine how great it would be.”

– In a different league –

While around 10 million people with **** still need to be reached with antiretroviral therapy, around 30 million are on such treatment.

Byanyima, the executive director of the ****** ******* Nations Programme on **** and AIDS, said this was only possible thanks to innovations from pharmaceutical companies like Gilead.

But Lenacapavir is “so highly effective, it’s in a different category of preventive medicines”, she said.

Byanyima said the ***** would help the hardest to reach.

“Those people hiding from the law — gay men, trans women — who could come out just twice a year to get their injection and be safe”, she said, not to mention young women in *******, fearing stigma and domestic *********.

Lenacapavir was approved for use for **** patients in the ******* States and the ********* Union in 2022. It is available from around $40,000 a year in the US.

It is also being tested for potential pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use, to prevent people without **** from getting the virus — with very promising interim results.

Byanyima insisted that through tiered pricing — for example someone in Nepal paying a fraction of the price of someone in Britain — Gilead could still turn a profit on Lenacapavir.

“We could come close to ending this ********,” she insisted.

Gilead has previously said it is in talks with governments and organisations “as we work to reach our access goals”.

– 2030 target –

Broadly speaking, **** innovations were producing better products for prevention and treatment with greater efficacy and fewer side effects, Byanyima said.

However, “a vaccine is very, very difficult to make. Same as a cure.

“But we have everything in between now for people to live long, healthy lives.”

Some 1.3 million people were newly infected with **** last year.

UNAIDS maintains it is possible to end **** as a public health threat by 2030 — but only if leaders make the right decisions on funding, resourcing and rights.

“We do see countries making progress towards that, which also proves that it is possible,” said Byanyima.

She said that since 2010, some countries in sub-Saharan ******* had reduced new infections by more than half, and deaths by up to 60 percent.

However, “we also have regions such as Eastern Europe, Central Asia and ****** America where we see new infections moving in the wrong direction and rising,” with stigma pushing people away from services.

– ‘Fulfil the promise’ –

Byanyima also warned of a “well-coordinated, well-resourced pushback” against LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights and gender equality.

She cited the harsher Anti-Homosexuality Act imposed in her native Uganda, moves to decriminalise female ******** mutilation in The Gambia and the US Supreme Court stripping constitutional protections for *********.

The 25th International AIDS Conference takes place in Munich from Monday to Friday, bringing together governments, civil society, academia, scientists and people living with **** to share knowledge.

Byanyima said she wanted to see a boost in the political will to conquer the AIDS pandemic.

“Fulfil the promise that this ******** will end. No-one should suffer, living with ****,” she said.

“We have all the possibilities for people to live healthy lives. And we should do it.”

• Published On Jul 22, 2024 at 11:00 AM IST

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