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Comment by asveikau | Hacker News Reader

Oh, ok, I skimmed past this:

> The shot was also superior to once-daily Truvada, another Gilead drug that is used for HIV prevention.

That's good news. As I understand it the existing treatments were already very good. And these injections are only once per year.

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Twice a year, but yes. That's a huge benefit -- not only is it easier for patients to stay on the treatment, but it's likely to be a lot cheaper as well.

I wonder how much variation there might be in terms of margin of error. Like, how close do they have to get to keeping people on a rigid 6-month schedule? Would 7 be fine? For what percentage of people? I'm assuming they have reason to believe once a year isn't enough, so that's an upper bound, but what's the lower one?

the short answer is no one knows (yet). if/once it gets approval, there likely would be a followup study on how much you can stretch the timing (possibly with dosage variation)

> I wonder how much variation there might be in terms of margin of error.

Probably quite a bit. The trial used the same dose of lenacapavir as what's used for maintenance in HIV patients; it's quite possible that less is needed to prevent infection in a healthy patient. Unfortunately, there's really no safe/ethical way for them to test lower doses.

It'll only be cheap once the patent expires. Until then, take those pills daily, y'all!

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