Lenacapavir: Not a Vaccine But a Solution for HIV/AIDS?

For forty years Tony Fauci labored away at the NIH trying to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS, and failed. He consistently said that because of the peculiar nature of HIV, it's ability to attack and disable T cells, to destroy the very immune system which protects against infection, a Vaccine against HIV was probably never going to happen.

Many private companies have failed to develop a vaccine or a preventative molecule.

But now a drug company, Gilead, has developed a molecule, lenacapavir, which binds to the viral mechanism required for viral replication, a classic anti viral drug. Taken twice a year, it apparently prevents HIV infection safely and effectively. Who needs a vaccine if you've got a drug to prevent the disease?

So, where are the headlines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post? 

HIV DEFEATED! 

AN END TO THE SCOURGE OF HIV!

Apparently, not so fast.

While the drug can be produced inexpensively and used to great effect, as it has been during large trials in Africa, the company which makes it, Gilead wants to repeat the rewards of its discovery. That means charging $40,000 a year in the United States, whereas in the 3rd world, it can be profitable at $40 a year.

As of 2024 the drug, produced by Gilead, costs US$42,250 for the first year. A study presented in July 2024^[22] found that mass production of a generic version would allow a profit margin of 30% on an annual price of $40 if used by 10 million people. The authors said that lowering HIV levels significantly would probably require 60 million people to take the drug preventative.

--Wikipedia

According to Endocrine lore, when Banting and Best discovered insulin in 1922, they sold the patent rights for $1. They wanted to get insulin produced in industrial quantities because they had wards full of dying kids with Type 1 diabetes. Money did not matter to them. It was all about the kids. Every month's delay meant more kids literally dying before their eyes in Toronto.

Mother holds Child with Diabetes 1922

Now, there is a difference between a vaccine and an antiviral: a vaccine might be used once and provide years of protection, but there are vaccines, like the flu vaccine, which require annual injections and if this drug requires twice yearly injections, would it not be almost as good? Currently COVID vaccines are  twice yearly vaccines.

But here, with HIV and this new drug, we have a financial structure and an ethos working against public health and individual fates.

1$ for the patent to Insulin