Approval of a cheap version of HIV-prevention shot lenacapavir raises hopes in low-income countries

The U.S. Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion has ap­proved a gener­ic ver­sion of the world’s on­ly twice-a-year shot to pre­vent HIV — a big step to­ward mak­ing the drug avail­able in­ex­pen­sive­ly and more quick­ly in 120 low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries.

The an­nounce­ment was made on Mon­day morn­ing by the man­u­fac­tur­er and or­ga­ni­za­tions that helped to speed up de­vel­op­ment of the med­ica­tion, called lenaca­pavir.

The drug is ex­pect­ed to cost $40 a year per per­son in the coun­tries where it will be avail­able, the same price as dai­ly pre­ven­tive pills avail­able now. But the shots are much more con­ve­nient than the pills be­cause they’re need­ed much less fre­quent­ly and they near­ly elim­i­nat­ed new in­fec­tions in two ground­break­ing stud­ies of peo­ple at high risk.