Starting this month, most people with private insurance will no longer have to decide whether they can afford to protect themselves against HIV. Most health plans must begin to cover the drugs then without charging consumers anything out-of-pocket.
UnitedHealthcare sent a notice to plan members stating that it would no longer cover Descovy to prevent HIV, while Truvada - after it goes generic next month - will be covered for free. Gilead reported that Descovy for PrEP had offset a second-quarter fall in product sales.
Health systems have spent billions on portals while investments in modernizing the voice channel — the dominant preference of healthcare consumers — have taken a backseat.
The company said Tuesday that a final analysis of its Phase IIb/III study of cabotegravir showed greater efficacy in HIV prevention than Gilead's Truvada. The study, among men and transgender women who have sex with men, was stopped in May following an interim analysis.
A Phase IIb/III study sponsored by NIAID is being stopped early after an interim analysis indicated that injected cabotegravir provided better protection than Gilead's Truvada.
A study, published Monday, found that when generic versions of Gilead's Truvada become available, payers should only be willing to pay a few hundred dollars more per year for Descovy, approved for PrEP in October, despite the latter's better toxicity profile.
The social media company last month began taking down ads for lawsuits over Gilead's Truvada after complaints from LGBT and HIV organizations. However, several such ads have continued appearing on the platform, including one updated Monday that linked the drug to injuries.
Monica Vajani, Executive Director for mHUB’s MedTech Accelerator, discusses how mHUB is helping innovators transition healthcare towards value-based care.
News media reported that the social media company began taking down ads for lawsuits against Gilead Sciences regarding the drug Truvada following widespread outcry from LGBT and HIV groups and health experts.
The Ready, Set, PrEP program is designed to provide Gilead Sciences' Truvada and Descovy to up to 200,000 people who do not have prescription drug insurance coverage. Gilead is donating supplies of both drugs.
Although Descovy showed an advantageous side-effect profile, one doctor described Truvada as mostly well-tolerated, while another said switching to Descovy will depend on insurance coverage. Both expressed a desire for data in other vulnerable populations.
A report by the California HIV/AIDS Policy Research Centers found the number of PrEP users in Medi-Cal increased from 79 in 2012 to 3,295 in 2016. But the authors also discovered that the use of the drug among African-American Medi-Cal enrollees in 2016 was 37 percent lower than the rate among white patients.
The path forward is clear: employers must evaluate their health plan the same way they do their Saturday shopping excursion.
Michael Weinstein, the president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation is not necessarily who you’d expect to be standing up against Truvada – the medication created to prevent H.I.V. Truvada is used as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. Weinsteing has called it “a public health disaster in the making.” Starting this week, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation […]