Advancements in HIV Treatment and Prevention

Segment Description: Brian Woodfall, MD, global head of development at Janssen, shares his opinion on some of the biggest advancements in HIV treatment and prevention.

Interview transcript (modified slightly for readability):

Contagion^®: What do you think are some of the biggest advancements in HIV treatment or prevention being developed?

Dr. Woodfall: So, I think in terms of the advancements of HIV, we’ve seen tremendous ones over the years, in terms of where we’ve come in driving efficacy in viral suppression, improving safety and long-term tolerability, then working on convenience and simplicity.

Where we go from now, of course, is to offer greater options for patients in term of treatments that will fit their lifestyle, as opposed to having a patient’s lifestyle fit treatments. And so, long-acting injectables or other types of long-acting therapy would certainly be one of those options that may provide that.

In addition, of course, we now have the opportunity to think about things like remission or functional cure or even complete viral eradication. Of course, those are very ambitious goals that will require a lot of the best science and also a tremendous amount of collaboration across all of the stakeholders in HIV to drive that. But, that certainly is an opportunity that is not available for us to explore that never would have been there a decade ago, for example.