Expectations For Upcoming Long-Acting ART

Jason Schafer, PharmD, MPH, BCPS AQ-ID, Associate Professor at Thomas Jefferson University, discusses upcoming long-acting therapies for HIV.

Interview Transcript (modified slightly for readability):

Schafer: In terms of long-acting injectable medicines for HIV, the newest medicines, the ones that are we are anticipating coming out very soon, are the long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine combination.

There's more data being presented here at ID Week on that combination. We're anticipating data looking at not just administering these medicines every 4 weeks, but perhaps every 8 weeks, extending that dosing frequency and allowing people a larger gap in between doses, whether that still will correspond to clinical efficacy and better satisfaction for patients. I think that that's certainly noteworthy information to take away from the meeting.

I'm also interested in learning how people plan to implement the use of these medicines in their clinic. As we know, people on these medicines will need to come and see their healthcare professional in order to receive these medicines. They're not medicines that they can administer themselves. They're not medicines that that a pharmacist could administer to them.

It really will take some considerable thought on the logistics for clinics to be able to administer these medicines in high volume to their patients. And it'll be interesting to see once real-world patients do receive these medicines, how many remain on these medicines in the long term?

There are a number of other long-acting options that are on the way. These are the first. It'll be interesting to see the impact of implementing a program for long acting injectable medicines in our clinics.