Tag Archives: PrEP

The Associated Press reports: The Supreme Court seemed likely to uphold a key preventive-care provision of the Affordable Care Act in a case heard Monday. Conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with the court’s three liberals, appeared skeptical of arguments that Obamacare’s process for deciding which services must be fully covered by private insurance is unconstitutional. The …

NBC News reports: The Trump administration is considering a plan to eliminate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division focused on HIV prevention and potentially move its responsibilities over to another department within the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a source familiar with the plan. HIV prevention advocates — who began hearing rumors of the possible …

Science.org reports: Despite decades of progress, HIV still infects more than 1 million people a year, and a vaccine remains stubbornly out of reach. But this year the world got a glimpse of what might be the next best thing: an injectable drug that protects people for 6 months with each shot. A large efficacy trial in African adolescent girls …

Axios reports: A federal judge in Texas ruled Thursday that employers can’t be required to cover specified preventive health care services under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling has major implications for the more than 150 million Americans on employer-sponsored health plans and could put millions on the hook financially for cancer screenings, immunizations, contraception and other high-value services. The …

The Advocate reports: A federal judge in Texas has ruled partially in favor of plaintiffs that argued that requiring insurance companies to cover medications for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, violates their rights on religious grounds. Jonathan Mitchell, who founded a one-person law firm in 2018 intending to challenge decades-old Supreme Court rulings, brought the case Braidwood Management Inc., vs. …

Via press release from the FDA: Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Apretude (cabotegravir extended-release injectable suspension) for use in at-risk adults and adolescents weighing at least 35 kilograms (77 pounds) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV. Apretude is given first as two initiation injections administered one month apart, and then every …

The Guardian reports: New diagnoses of HIV among gay and bisexual men have dropped to their lowest level in 20 years, according to Public Health England. A PHE report reveals that overall, across all genders and sexualities, the number of people with a new HIV diagnosis dropped by 10% from 4,580 cases in 2018 to 4,139 in 2019. There was …

The BBC reports: The number of people diagnosed with HIV in the UK has dropped substantially since 2012, according to figures released by Public Health England. Gay and bisexual men have experienced the most dramatic decline in new infections, with rates falling by 71%. It has been attributed to a rise in the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Campaigners are …

The Washington Post reports: Facebook has quietly started removing some misleading ads about HIV prevention medication, responding to a deluge of activists, health experts and government regulators who said the tech giant had created the conditions for a public-health crisis. The ads at issue — purchased by pages affiliated with personal-injury lawyers and seen millions of times — linked drugs …

STAT News reports: In a bid to bolster a campaign to end HIV transmission in the United States, the Trump administration announced Tuesday that it will provide free pre-exposure prophylaxis — known as PrEP — for people at risk of contracting the virus who do not have prescription drug coverage. PrEP, which is taken daily, has been shown to be …

The New York Daily News reports: Victory is in sight. City officials say they are on the cusp of the once unthinkable — ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic as new medicines and treatment drove down the number of new cases to a 17-year-low in 2018, Health Department stats show. And officials say it’s all thanks to the emergence of a new …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Gilead Sciences, a pharmaceutical company that sells H.I.V.-prevention drugs that can cost patients up to $20,000 a year, accusing the company of earning billions from research funded by taxpayers without paying taxpayers back. The government said the company infringed upon patents owned by the Department of Health and Human …

The Associated Press reports: Pharmacists in California will be able to dispense HIV prevention pills to patients without a doctor’s prescription after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Monday that supporters say will greatly reduce the spread of infection. Advocates of Senate Bill 159 say that California is the first state to authorize pre-exposure prophylaxis, also called PrEP, and post-exposure prophylaxis, …

NBC News reports: Gilead Sciences, the drug giant behind the blockbuster HIV prevention pill Truvada, won FDA approval on Thursday to market Descovy — a medication already used by those who have HIV — as its next-generation prevention drug. The final approval follows an August vote in favor of Descovy as a pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, or PrEP, by an FDA …

An important update to official CDC guidelines: For HIV-positive MSM, taking ART regularly greatly reduces the risk of HIV transmission to a negative partner. For persons who achieve and maintain viral suppression, there is effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to their HIV-negative sexual partner. This translates to an effectiveness estimate of 100% for taking ART regularly as prescribed and …

The Washington Post reports: The chairman of the House Oversight Committee is expanding the committee’s review of Gilead Science’s patent claims relating to Truvada for PrEP, the company’s drug that prevents HIV infection. In a letter released Thursday, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) demanded emails and other information from Gilead about negotiations that led to Gilead’s pledge to donate free …

Politico reports: Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) released a plan Thursday that would seek to slow the spread of HIV by making a preventive drug more accessible. The plan would require that private and public insurance plans cover PrEP without a copay. In addition, insurance companies would be required to cover any tests related to PrEP. The bill also would create …

The Washington Post reports: The chief executive of Gilead Sciences, the nation’s leading manufacturer of HIV drugs, insisted before a House committee Thursday that a government patent on Truvada, a key drug that prevents the infection, is invalid. “Our well-supported view is that the U.S. government does not hold valid patents on the use of Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (‘PrEP’), …

Via press release: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II announced today that, as a result of discussions between the Trump Administration and Gilead Sciences, Inc., the pharmaceutical company has agreed to donate pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication for up to 200,000 individuals each year for up to 11 years. PrEP is used to reduce the risk of HIV …

NBC News reports: Thirty-five percent of gay and bisexual men at high risk of HIV infection were using PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, the daily pill that prevents HIV infection, in 2017, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2014, just 6 percent of these men used PrEP. However, despite the nearly 500 percent …