HIV prevention medication ‘could one day be a yearly jab’ – study suggests
Yearly doses could reduce barriers people face to taking preventative HIV medication, researchers said.
An annual jab to protect against HIV “shows potential”, according to an early study.
Millions of people around the world are deemed to be at high risk of contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
But only 3.5 million take pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which reduces a person’s risk of getting HIV.
Researchers believe that giving people the option for long-lasting treatment could help reduce the number of new HIV infections, citing potential problems with “adherence and persistence” among people taking daily tablets.
The new study, published in The Lancet, found that a yearly injection lenacapavir, made by Gilead Sciences, was “safe and well tolerated”.
The study, which has also been presented to the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, was a phase one clinical trial examining data on 40 people aged 18 to 55, who were given a single dose of the treatment.
Concentrations of the annual medication remain in the body for at least 56 weeks, researchers found.
They said that average concentrations “exceeded those associated with efficacy” in the trial which assessed the jab at a twice-yearly interval.
“These data show the potential for biomedical HIV prevention with a once-yearly dosing interval,” experts wrote in The Lancet.
More studies will be needed to confirm the efficacy of the treatment, they added.
“There were 1.3 million new HIV infections globally in 2023,” the authors wrote.
“However, despite the availability of multiple pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) options, only 3.5 million of the 21.2 million people who would benefit from PrEP were receiving it in 2023.
“Although daily oral PrEP options are highly effective when used as directed, challenges with adherence and persistence have limited their overall effect.
“Longer-acting options can overcome some of the key challenges with daily oral PrEP by avoiding the requirement for adherence to daily dosing.”
They added: “Yearly dosing of lenacapavir has the potential to further decrease current barriers to PrEP by increasing the uptake of, persistence on, and, therefore, scalability of PrEP.”
A long-acting injectable PrEP has been approved in the US, but it is not yet available in the UK.
Experts at the National Institute for health and Care Excellence (Nice) are currently considering whether or not to approve a PrEP injection which is given once every two months.
Commenting on the new study, Richard Angell, chief executive of Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “PrEP as a daily pill has been a game-changer in our HIV response, the prospect of ‘safe’ annual injectable PrEP is as exciting as it is transformational.
“It’s great to see these early results that suggest injectable PrEP might be effective for up to 12 months, we need to get ready for its roll out now and fund sexual health clinics to do so.
“PrEP has been characterised by delays — and in turn, inequalities — and this cannot continue.
“The oral pill is still not available in prisons, online or in community pharmacy.
“The Scottish Medicines Consortium has finally approved two monthly PrEP injections for use in Scotland, but we are waiting for Nice approval for use in England.
“Thanks to rapid HIV testing, PrEP and the fact that a person living with HIV on effective treatment can’t pass it on, we can end new HIV cases by 2030—all without a vaccine or a cure. Increasing access to PrEP—including making oral PrEP accessible beyond sexual health services through a digital service and community pharmacies and getting injectables to be routinely commissioned—will be crucial to realising this historic goal.”
