- A company that specializes in HIV/AIDS treatment wants to provide an annual injection
Treating HIV could be like getting a flu shot and only one injection a year is needed to control the condition, a leading pharmaceutical boss has said.
Deborah Waterhouse, CEO of ViiV Healthcare, which specializes in treating HIV/AIDS, told The Mail on Sunday that the company wanted to launch an annual jab within the next decade.
ViiV – owned by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – currently offers an injection that people with HIV must take every two months to keep their virus levels suppressed.
It is sold under the brand name Cabenuva and has been available on the NHS since April last year as an alternative to the more common daily tablets.
ViiV – owned by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – currently offers an injection that people with HIV must take every two months (stock photo)
But ViiV is working on developing a new version that will increase the time between injections to four months, and Ms Waterhouse said there is also “a path towards” a shot that only needs to be administered twice a year.
She added that once-a-year treatments to suppress the virus are also close and could be available in the early 2030s.
“You can get to a point where you only have to treat someone once a year, almost like taking a flu vaccine,” she said.
Meanwhile, ViiV plans to offer the four-monthly shot by 2027 and the six-monthly dose by the end of the decade.
The condition has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths since it was diagnosed in the early 1980s (stock photo)
If left untreated, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which reduces the body’s ability to defend itself against disease and infection.
The condition has been responsible for tens of millions of deaths since it was diagnosed in the early 1980s.
However, advances in medical treatment since then mean that today someone with HIV can have a normal life expectancy, provided they continue to take the medication.
Most current treatments still require patients to take the daily tablets, but ViiV says reducing the number of doses will not only keep virus levels low but also reduce anxiety around the condition.
HIV is estimated to affect around 100,000 people in Britain.