Yeztugo, a brand new twice-a-year shot can prevent HIV BUT It costs $28,218 per year!

When it comes to HIV prevention, each new development always comes with a BUT …… and in most cases, its inevitable the cost factor, which in turn will determine if everyone will be able to access it on their health insurance.

Regardless, at this stage, we should congratulate GILEAD Sciences for their breakthrough drug Yeztugo (generic name lenacapavir), which has already received approval from the Food and Drug Administration.  A twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV has the potential to greatly reduce the spread of the virus in the United States and the rest of the world, IF we can afford it or find funds somehow to pay

Anyone likely to be exposed to HIV through sexual contact, who is interested in subcutaneously injected medications and who does not have HIV can take Yeztugo  Eileen Scully, an associate professor of medicine who researches HIV at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has said “Yeztugo would be mostly for at-risk people who might find it challenging to take a daily pill for prevention, such as Descovy or Truvada.  She added,  “The more people who know about it, the better, because this is a really empowering step for people to take” in addition to already available treatments, she said.”

Here are the facts you need to know :

• Yeztugo is a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) that aims to prevent new sexually transmitted HIV infections in adults and adolescents weighing at least 35 kg (77 pounds). The injection is administered twice a year in clinics.
• The FDA approval was supported by data from two trials. In a randomized trial, none of the more than 5,000 young women and girls in South Africa and Uganda who received Yeztugo contracted HIV.
• In another randomized trial, there were two HIV infections among the group of men and gender-diverse people who received Yeztugo when compared with nine HIV infections in the group that took Truvada, a once-daily oral HIV treatment and prevention pill.
• Only HIV-negative individuals should get Yeztugo and they must be tested before every injection, Gilead said in a news release. Resistance to Yeztugo may develop if an individual is infected with the virus before or when getting the drug, or after they discontinue it.
• The most common side effects are reactions at the injection site, including pain, swelling or redness, Scully said.

Raphael J. Landovitz, director of the UCLA Center for Clinical AIDS Research and Education called Yeztugo a “new powerful tool in the HIV prevention toolbox.” He added that, “in many settings, fewer annual contacts with the health care system is easier, more acceptable and a lower burden to both providers and patients.”

Monica Gandhi, the medical director of the HIV Clinic at Ward 86 and a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco said “I’m very worried about health insurance plans saying that the price point is too expensive.”

The timing of the announcement from Gilead couldnt be better as we were just devastated by the anouncement from The Orange Man in The White House that one of his more damaging acts is terminating a $258 million program whose work was instrumental to the search for a  HIV vaccine.  This will have severe consequences not just the US but around the globe who rely on the US for helping in stop spreading the virus

The cuts will derail hard-won progress against H.I.V. over the past few decades, public health experts said. This week, the administration also withheld funds that were due to states and territories for H.I.V. prevention work. In Texas, the State Department of Health Services asked grantees to pause all activities “until further notice.”