Biktarvy as Post-Exposure Prophylaxis

[Jim Allen]

POZ.com article in full: https://www.poz.com/article/biktarvy-can-good-option-postexposure-prophylaxis

In brief:

The once-daily Biktarvy pill, widely used for HIV treatment, can also be a good option for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), according to study results presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver.

The new study included 120 people who received PEP at emergency departments. Participants who initiated PEP with another regimen were switched to Biktarvy for the remainder of the 28 days. Most (89%) had initially been prescribed dolutegravir plus TDF/FTC, two started on raltegravir plus TDF/FTC and 11 started on Biktarvy.

The researchers found that adherence to Biktarvy PEP was high: 88% of the participants with available data reported that they took PEP for at least 28 days. Twelve people stopped PEP early, mostly after 20 days. PEP was generally well tolerated.

No HIV seroconversions occurred among the 66 participants who were tested for HIV at 12 weeks. Nearly a quarter went on to start PrEP by their final study visit.

Biktarvy PEP “was safe, well tolerated and associated with high adherence and no HIV seroconversions,” showing that this is an appropriate single-tablet integrase inhibitor-based HIV PEP regimen, the researchers concluded.

[numbersguy82]

Interesting. I wonder if this designation would make the price of Biktarvy go up or down, for the regular user.

[Jim Allen]

Interesting. I wonder if this designation would make the price of Biktarvy go up or down, for the regular user.

I honestly don't know, part of me would not expect anything to get cheaper. I wonder if the prices changed in the past when newer drugs were approved for PEP? Maybe someone knows.