{"id":579409,"date":"2026-08-01T21:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579409\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T21:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T21:57:10","slug":"long-acting-lenacapavir-still-delivered-effective-hiv-prep-after-a-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/579409\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-Acting Lenacapavir Still Delivered Effective HIV PrEP After a Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Only one person has developed a new HIV infection during a year-long extension of the landmark PURPOSE 1 and PURPOSE 2 trials testing twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir (Yeztugo) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), according to twin open-label extensions.<\/p>\n<p>There were no new HIV cases in the PURPOSE 1 52-week open-label extension among adolescent girls and young women in South Africa and Uganda. That extension included 2,136 patients who remained on lenacapavir after the trial&#8217;s randomized blinded phase ended, and 2,496 patients who switched at the extension&#8217;s start to lenacapavir from either daily oral emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide (Descovy) or emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Truvada).<\/p>\n<p>Including the two HIV infections that happened in the lenacapavir group during PURPOSE 1&#8217;s randomized blinded phase, the post-extension HIV incidence including all lenacapavir person-time was 0.03 per 100 person-years (95% CI 0.00-0.10). The incidence rate was 0.00 (95% CI 0.00-0.13) among those who switched to lenacapavir for the extension, reported Noah Kiwanuka, MBChB, PhD, of Makerere University School of Public Health in Kampala, Uganda, at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/meetingcoverage\/iac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">International AIDS Conference<\/a> (IAC) in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As an investigator at one of the study sites, I must say that it has been a good experience to see us removed from seeing women getting infected with HIV in the randomized study phase to zero HIV infections in the open-label phase,&#8221; Kiwanuka said.<\/p>\n<p>The PURPOSE 2 52-week open-label extension saw only one new HIV infection among the cisgender men and transgender or gender-nonbinary persons who continued treatment. That new case was among the 1,587 patients who remained on lenacapavir; there were no new HIV cases among the 827 patients who switched from daily oral PrEP to lenacapavir.<\/p>\n<p>The HIV incidence rate combining all lenacapavir person-time for the two extension groups was 0.07 per 100 person-years (95% CI 0.02-0.18). The rate was 0.09 (95% CI 0.02-0.22) among those taking lenacapavir during both the PURPOSE 2 randomized blinded phase and the extension, while those who switched from daily oral PrEP to lenacapavir for the extension period saw a rate of 0.00 (95% CI 0.00-0.38), reported Marcelo Losso, MD, of Hospital General de Agudos J. M. Ramos Mej\u00eda in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a separate IAC presentation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After 30 years providing care at a public hospital for people living with HIV, it&#8217;s a privilege to be part of an initiative that provided innovation for the people who need it,&#8221; Lasso noted.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/meetingcoverage\/iac\/111229\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PURPOSE 1<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/hivaids\/hivaids\/113160\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PURPOSE 2<\/a> trials showed lenacapavir was highly effective in preventing HIV infection.<\/p>\n<p>In PURPOSE 1, PrEP with injectable lenacapavir every 26 weeks reduced HIV incidence by 100% compared with daily oral emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and background HIV incidence.<\/p>\n<p>In cisgender men and transgender or gender-nonbinary persons, PURPOSE 2 found that twice-a-year lenacapavir cut the rate of HIV infections by a relative 89% compared with daily oral emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, with rates of 0.10 versus 0.93 per 100 person-years.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/hivaids\/hivaids\/116154\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FDA approved lenacapavir as PrEP<\/a> to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV-1 in at-risk adults and adolescents, and the CDC PrEP Guidelines Work Group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/hivaids\/117629\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">strongly recommended<\/a> its PrEP use.<\/p>\n<p>Safety and tolerability were similar in the two open-label extensions. In PURPOSE 1, 7% of the continuous-treatment group and 5% of the switch group had serious adverse events (AEs), but less than 1% of each group had an AE that led to treatment discontinuation. Injection-site reactions leading to treatment discontinuation happened in less than 1% of either group.<\/p>\n<p>PURPOSE 2 saw serious AEs in 7% of the continuous-treatment group and 3% of the switch group, with AEs causing treatment discontinuation in less than 1% and 0% of the two groups, respectively. Injection-site reactions led to treatment discontinuation in 1% of the continuous-treatment group and 0% of the switch group.<\/p>\n<p>In both extensions, adherence was high among patients who&#8217;d switched from daily oral PrEP to lenacapavir. In PURPOSE 1, 97% of those in the switch group received the third lenacapavir injection, as did 92% of the PURPOSE 2 switch group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only one person has developed a new HIV infection during a year-long extension of the landmark PURPOSE 1&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-579409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}