Breakthroughs Blog: HIV/AIDS

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its first global research agenda outlining key priorities in the fight against antimicrobial resistance. The intent of the agenda is to provide researchers, policymakers, funders, and other stakeholders with priority research topics for which greater action and evidence is needed. It covers issues including preserving current antimicrobials, advancing point-of-care diagnostic tests, and developing novel drugs to treat drug-resistant infections. The 40 priorities that relate to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, and cross-cutting topics were developed after a review of more than 3,000 documents published over the past decade looking at antimicrobial resistance.A recent study found promising results for a new, point-of-care genomic test for human papillomavirus (HPV) that could be a cheaper and more accessible option for cervical cancer screening in low-resource areas like sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest rate of deaths from cervical cancer globally. Unlike currently available screening options, the HPV DNA test can be performed by a health care professional with minimal training using a mini centrifuge in the lab, cutting out the need for robust laboratory infrastructure and highly skilled professionals. The research team behind the test is now trying to make the test even more effective and efficient in low-resource settings by making it faster, inclusive of more HPV genotypes, and more sensitive.Researchers from the University of Montreal recently published a study showing for the first time the crucial role of a protein, adyl hydrocarbon receptor, or AhR, in allowing HIV to remain latent in the body, thus requiring antiretroviral therapy to be maintained in order to keep the virus from replicating. The researchers used CRISPR technology and drugs to neutralize the activity of AhR and observed that viral growth occurred in people living with HIV and on antiretroviral therapy. The study proposes a “shock and kill” strategy that would use drugs to inhibit and then reactivate AhR in the presence of AhR inhibitors to expose the HIV-infected cells for the immune system to then target and kill. Investigators hope further research can validate this method of fighting HIV.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Last week, Indian drug company Cipla confirmed that a generic version of the HIV prophylaxis long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA) will be manufactured at its plants in South Africa for the first time, which could potentially offer millions of people at risk of HIV infection in Africa access to the groundbreaking drug. CAB-LA is a two-monthly jab that is easier to take regularly and has also been found to work better than the daily HIV prevention pill, which is currently available for free in South Africa and several other countries on the continent. The introduction of generic manufacturers into the market for HIV drugs has the potential to dramatically reduce medicine prices, which are often out of reach for low- and middle-income countries, even at prices discounted by the manufacturers that hold the original patents.IAVI and Zendal Group’s subsidiary Biofabri have signed an expanded deal to develop MTBVAC, the only live, attenuated mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) vaccine in the pipeline. The developers are targeting the vaccine for use in adults and adolescents and are aiming for the candidate to be more effective and potentially longer lasting than the bacillus Calmette-Guérin, or BCG, vaccine that is currently in use to prevent TB in newborns. IAVI is planning to commence a trial for the MTBVAC in 2024 after sufficient funding is secured. The deal also includes support for advancing MTBVAC for infants following Biofabri commencing a phase 3 trial of MTBVAC in neonates last year.Last week, the US National Institutes of Health announced that they are beginning to enroll patients in an early-stage clinical trial testing an mRNA universal flu vaccine that is aimed at protecting against a wide variety of strains of the flu and providing long-term immunity. The shot, designed by researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will test whether the shot is safe and produces an immune response in 50 healthy adult volunteers. If proved to be safe and effective, a universal flu vaccine could eliminate the need for scientists and vaccine manufacturers to predict the dominant flu strain and produce shots in advance of prime flu season, as well as reduce the risk of illness and hospitalization, particularly when the shots available are not well matched to the dominant circulating strains.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.The World Health Organization (WHO) recently warned about the limited pipeline of new antibiotics for drug-resistant bacteria in a report based on a review published by WHO in 2022. The report found that only 12 new antibiotics entered the market between 2017 and 2021. Additionally, the report found that although 27 experimental antibiotics for critical bacterial infections are in clinical development, only 6 of those are considered different enough from existing antibiotics to potentially be used against drug-resistant pathogens without concern. Without a steady stream of novel antibiotics entering the pipeline and market, bacterial infections will become increasingly dangerous as bacteria continues to develop resistance to existing drugs.A new study from researchers at HDT Bio found that a new type of RNA vaccine against HIV and the Zika virus generated strong antibody responses in pregnant rabbits and their offspring. More studies will be necessary to confirm that vaccinating the mother alone is enough to protect against infection in the offspring, as well as to optimize vaccination timing and to see if the results can translate to humans. If successful, the vaccine could be an important tool in preventing mother-to-child transmission of these viruses and reducing the disease burden in newborns.A new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, supported by the US National Institutes of Health, found that HIV can persist in myeloid cells, a subset of white blood cells, in people who have been virally suppressed for years through antiretroviral therapy. The researchers emphasized that these findings challenge the long-held idea that these cells are short-lived, proving instead that these cells may contribute to an HIV reservoir and could be an important target in the development of a cure. Larger studies with more diverse participant pools will be needed to identify the proportion of people who show latent HIV in myeloid cells, as well as the mechanisms that replenish this reservoir over time.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Last week, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel recommended approval of two vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for adults 60 and older, one by Pfizer and one by GlaxoSmithKline. The agency could grant formal approval to the vaccines in the coming months, making them the first shots available against RSV, a disease responsible for significant deaths and hospitalizations among older adults and young children. Other vaccines, as well as monoclonal antibody treatments, also in the pipeline could additionally address the yearly burden of RSV.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a warning about a rise in extensively drug-resistant cases of Shigella, especially in gay and bisexual men, in the United States and other countries. Shigella is a highly infectious bacterial infection that causes an inflammatory diarrheal condition and is spread when infected fecal matter enters the mouth or nose. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control also released an alert about possible cases among recent travelers. Doctors have faced major challenges in identifying viable alternative antibiotics to treat these cases, underlining the need for greater focus on the research and development of new antibiotics.This year’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections saw a myriad of presentations on how best to expand global access to the cabotegravir, or CAB-LA, which is a long acting, injectable form of preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) used to prevent HIV infection. CAB-LA joins oral PrEP and the recently approved dapivirine vaginal ring as a third safe and effective biomedical HIV prevention option, for the first time allowing people an authentic choice among products. However, to ensure access and availability of these products, there remains a need for additional research on the use of CAB-LA in certain patient populations, including among people who inject drugs, and further research on effective delivery methods to expand uptake of oral PrEP.