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

GENEVA – The AIDS pandemic could be brought to an end if US pharmaceutical giant Gilead makes its game-changing new HIV drug available, the head of UNAIDS told AFP.

Winnie Byanyima urged Gilead to “make history” by allowing generic production of renacavir, a twice-yearly injected antiretroviral drug used to treat HIV patients.

She urged Gilead to make lenapavir available to the United Nations-backed International Medicines Patent Pool so that cheaper generic versions could be licensed and sold in low- and middle-income countries.

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Whatever the financial rewards of developing renacapavir, Byanyima says, the company’s reputation as a company that conquered the AIDS epidemic will be even stronger.

“Gilead has an opportunity to bring us closer to eliminating the threat of AIDS as a public health threat,” Byanyima told AFP in an interview at UNAIDS headquarters in Geneva.

“Gilead has a chance to save the world. Literally, save the world” from this epidemic.

“For example, they could become a company that wins the Nobel Prize. The reward is not just money. There’s also recognition… Imagine how great that would be.”

In different leagues

Currently, approximately 10 million people living with HIV still need antiretroviral therapy, and approximately 30 million are currently receiving such treatment.

This is thanks to innovations from pharmaceutical companies such as Gilead, said UNAIDS Executive Director Byanyima.

But she said renacavir is “very effective and it’s in a different class of preventive medicines.”

Byanyima said the drug will help those who are hardest to reach.

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“Those who are evading the law — gay men, transgender women — just need to come out and get vaccinated twice a year to be safe,” she said, not to mention young women in Africa who fear discrimination and domestic violence.

In 2022, the United States and the European Union approved the use of renacavir to treat HIV patients. In the United States, the annual cost of the drug is about $40,000.

It is also currently being tested for potential use as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV-uninfected people from becoming infected with the virus—and interim results are very promising.

Byanyima insists that by tiered pricing (for example, Nepalese would pay a fraction of the price people in the UK pay), Gilead can still make a profit on linacapravir.

“We can almost eliminate this disease,” she stressed.

Gilead has previously said it was in talks with governments and organizations “to work towards our accessibility goals.”

2030 Target

Broadly speaking, HIV innovation is producing better prevention and treatment products with greater efficacy and fewer side effects, Byanyima said.

However, “vaccines are very, very difficult to develop. Just like therapeutics.”

“But we’re now ready to give people a long, healthy life.”

Last year, approximately 1.3 million people were newly infected with HIV.

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UNAIDS firmly believes that it is possible for HIV to no longer be a public health threat by 2030, but only if leaders make the right decisions about funding, resources and rights.

“We do see countries moving towards this goal, which proves that it is possible,” Byanyima said.

She said new infections in some countries in sub-Saharan Africa had more than halved since 2010 and deaths had fallen by 60%.

However, “in regions like Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Latin America, we’re also seeing new infections going in the wrong direction and rising,” while stigma is pushing people away from health care.

“Fulfilling the promise”

Byanyima also warned that the pushback against LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights and gender equality will be “well-coordinated and well-resourced to suppress.”

She cited the more stringent Anti-Homosexuality Act implemented in her native Uganda, the Gambia’s move to legalize female genital mutilation and the U.S. Supreme Court’s stripping of constitutional protections for the right to abortion.

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

Byanyima said she would like to see greater political will to defeat AIDS.

“Keep the promise of eradicating this disease. No one should suffer from HIV,” she said.

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