PAHO provides Latin America and the Caribbean with new access to HIV drugs

The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) says it is pro­vi­did­ng new op­por­tu­ni­ties for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (LAC) to ac­cess lenaca­pavir as part of the pre­ven­ta­tive med­i­cine to curb the spread of HIV through­out the re­gion.

PA­HO said that the med­ica­tion will be made avail­able through its Re­gion­al Re­volv­ing Funds, un­der an agree­ment with Gilead Sci­ences and that the ini­tia­tive will make the long-act­ing HIV pre­ven­tion med­i­cine avail­able to 14 coun­tries.

“The agree­ment be­tween Gilead and PA­HO re­flects our shared com­mit­ment to help coun­tries move as quick­ly as pos­si­ble from sci­en­tif­ic in­no­va­tion to re­al-world ac­cess to HIV pre­ven­tion and pub­lic health im­pact,” said Jo­han­na Merci­er, Chief Com­mer­cial & Cor­po­rate Af­fairs Of­fi­cer, Gilead Sci­ences.

“Strate­gic part­ner­ships are es­sen­tial to our am­bi­tion to help end the HIV epi­dem­ic. This agree­ment demon­strates how col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments, pub­lic health or­ga­ni­za­tions and in­dus­try can ex­pand ac­cess, ac­cel­er­ate im­ple­men­ta­tion and cre­ate the con­di­tions for sus­tain­able scale.”

PA­HO said that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 140,000 new HIV in­fec­tions oc­cur each year in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, un­der­scor­ing the need to ex­pand ac­cess to ef­fec­tive and ac­cept­able pre­ven­tion op­tions.

Lenaca­pavir is a long-act­ing in­jectable pre-ex­po­sure pro­phy­lax­is (PrEP) ad­min­is­tered twice a year. In 2025, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) rec­om­mend­ed lenaca­pavir as an ad­di­tion­al HIV pre­ven­tion op­tion fol­low­ing clin­i­cal tri­als that demon­strat­ed al­most 100 per cent ef­fi­ca­cy in pre­vent­ing HIV in­fec­tion. Its twice-year­ly dos­ing pro­vides an al­ter­na­tive for peo­ple who may face chal­lenges with more fre­quent pre­ven­tion reg­i­mens.

Un­der the new agree­ment, the 14 coun­tries will be able to pro­cure lenaca­pavir through PA­HO’s Re­gion­al Re­volv­ing Funds, sub­ject to ap­plic­a­ble na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry and pro­gram­mat­ic process­es.

The new path­way com­ple­ments vol­un­tary li­cens­ing agree­ments that al­ready cov­er 24 coun­tries in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean un­der a broad­er glob­al ac­cess frame­work cov­er­ing 120 coun­tries world­wide. To­geth­er, these mech­a­nisms pro­vide com­ple­men­tary routes for coun­tries in the re­gion to ac­cess lenaca­pavir.

“To­day, the Amer­i­c­as have in­creas­ing­ly ef­fec­tive tools to pre­vent HIV, but these in­no­va­tions will have an im­pact on­ly if they reach the peo­ple who need them,” said PA­HO Di­rec­tor Dr. Jar­bas Bar­bosa.

“This ini­tia­tive is an im­por­tant step to­ward re­duc­ing gaps in ac­cess to lenaca­pavir, ex­pand­ing the pre­ven­tion op­tions avail­able to coun­tries and ad­vanc­ing ef­forts to end HIV as a pub­lic health prob­lem,” he added.

Coun­tries will be able to pro­cure lenaca­pavir through the es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures of PA­HO’s Re­gion­al Re­volv­ing Funds, which pool de­mand and sup­port ef­fi­cient and re­li­able pro­cure­ment for Mem­ber States un­der fa­vor­able con­di­tions.

As part of this ini­tia­tive, Gilead has al­so com­mit­ted to ad­vance a tech­nol­o­gy-trans­fer process in Brazil­with the aim of fa­cil­i­tat­ing lo­cal pro­duc­tion of Lenaca­pavir in the fu­ture. The process is still un­der de­vel­op­ment, and spe­cif­ic time­lines and mech­a­nisms have yet to be de­fined. In the longer term, in­creased re­gion­al pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty could con­tribute to greater avail­abil­i­ty of lenaca­pavir and more sus­tain­able pro­cure­ment con­di­tions.

PA­HO said the in­tro­duc­tion of lenaca­pavir in­to na­tion­al HIV pro­grammes will take place pro­gres­sive­ly and will de­pend on na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry process­es, clin­i­cal pro­to­cols, health-work­er train­ing and pro­gram­mat­ic plan­ning.

PA­HO said it is pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion to sup­port coun­tries with needs as­sess­ment and quan­tifi­ca­tion, guide­line de­vel­op­ment, mon­i­tor­ing and health-sys­tem pre­pared­ness, help­ing to en­sure that in­tro­duc­tion is ev­i­dence-based and adapt­ed to na­tion­al con­texts.

The agree­ment forms part of PA­HO’s broad­er ef­forts to ac­cel­er­ate ac­cess to new HIV pre­ven­tion tech­nolo­gies and strength­en re­gion­al ca­pac­i­ty to pro­duce health tech­nolo­gies. It is al­so aligned with the Al­liance for the Elim­i­na­tion of HIV, a re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion plat­form with­in PA­HO’s Dis­ease Elim­i­na­tion Ini­tia­tive.

PA­HO said lenaca­pavir adds to a grow­ing range of HIV pre­ven­tion op­tions, in­clud­ing dai­ly or event-dri­ven oral PrEP, long-act­ing cabote­gravir and con­doms, along­side ear­ly di­ag­no­sis and time­ly ac­cess to an­ti­retro­vi­ral treat­ment. Pro­vid­ing peo­ple with a range of pre­ven­tion op­tions can help re­spond to dif­fer­ent needs and pref­er­ences and sup­port more per­son-cen­tered ap­proach­es to HIV pre­ven­tion.

“Ex­pand­ing ac­cess to ef­fec­tive pre­ven­tion, di­ag­nos­tic and treat­ment tools, and en­sur­ing they reach every­one who needs them, will re­main es­sen­tial to re­duc­ing new HIV in­fec­tions and ad­vanc­ing to­ward the goal of end­ing HIV as a pub­lic health prob­lem by 2030,” PA­HO added. —WASH­ING­TON, D.C. (CMC)