Study: Bimonthly, injected PrEP better than daily pill at preventing HIV

But shots, he said, are a better means for achieving those ends, because “you don’t have to carry around a pill bottle and risk someone making judgments about why you might be on it, what it might mean, or even cause partners to become upset or violent.”

So when might the injections become available?

Landovitz noted that his team’s approach is now under review at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, with a decision expected by the end of this year or early 2022.

That would make cabotegravir the first of several versions of injectable PrEP already in the pipeline.

It’s likely to have the added benefit of increasing the pool of at-risk patients who decide to adopt PrEP protection in the first place, said Quarraisha Karim. She’s a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City, and she authored an accompanying editorial.

In her editorial, Karim characterized the need to stick to a pill regimen as a “major drawback” of the oral form of PrEP, and views an injectable option as being “well suited to persons who are unable to adhere to a daily tablet regimen.”

Which is all to the better because “PrEP coverage needs to increase substantially to achieve the worldwide goal for reducing HIV infection,” she wrote.