Injectable PReP Better Than Daily Pills, Study Find

metroweekly.com:

study has found that lenacapavir, an injectable medication administered twice a year, is more effective at preventing HIV among gay, bisexual, and transgender people than a daily regimen of Truvada, taken orally, as a form of pre-exposure prophylaxis.The study examined cisgender men, transgender men and women, and nonbinary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male at birth.

The participants hailed from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and the United States.Participants in the trial were randomized to either receive lenacapavir or Truvada on a placebo-controlled, double-blind basis — meaning that neither they nor the researchers were aware of who was getting which drug.An analysis of the trial results found that only two out of 2,180 participants who had received lenacapavir seroconverted, meaning they acquired HIV during the trial, compared to 9 of the 1,087 people who received Truvada.For the former group, this represented an 89% lower HIV infection rate than those in the Truvada group, and what Gilead estimated was a 96% lower infection rate than what would be expected had participants received neither HIV prevention drug.Given the statistical superiority of lenacapavir over Truvada, researchers will end the trial’s blinded phase several months early.They will then inform participants of which drug they received and offer all participants the option of receiving lenacapavir as a form of PrEP.Jen Kates, the director of global health and HIV policy at the health policy research nonprofit KFF, called the results “nothing short of amazing.”The findings come on the heels of a separate study concluding that lenacapavir demonstrated 100% efficacy among cisgender women in sub-Saharan Africa,.