Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1404255
This article is part of the Research Topic Novel Interventions for the Prevention and Control of Communicable Disease View all articles

Long-acting prescriptions and therapy for HIV-1 from market launch to the present in Germany (May 2021 to December 2023)

Provisionally accepted
Daniel Schmidt Daniel Schmidt 1*Christian Kollan Christian Kollan 1Matthias Stoll Matthias Stoll 2
  • 1 Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
  • 2 Hannover Medical School, Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In Europe, the combination of cabotegravir (CAB) with rilpivirine (RPV) has been approved as a dual injection long-acting (LA) therapy for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infections in adults since December 2020. Studies have shown that between 36% and 61% of people living with HIV (PLWHIV) prefer LA therapy. However, there are no real-world data on the number of people receiving LA therapy, in Germany or internationally. The aim of this study was to assess the current situation and trends in usage of LA therapy for the treatment of HIV-1 in Germany.Based on pharmacy prescription data derived from Insight Health, the monthly number of prescriptions for oral CAB, CAB-LA, and RPV-LA over the entire period of availability in Germany was analyzed and evaluated (May 2021 to December 2023). The number of 1st and 2nd initiation injections and subsequent maintenance injections was calculated on the basis of the prescriptions for oral CAB initiation.The bimonthly schedule resulted in two growing cohorts from September 2021 with an estimated 14,523 CAB-LA prescriptions over the entire period. Accordingly, in December 2023, there were approximately 1,364 people living with HIV (PLWHIV) receiving LA therapy, of whom 1,318 were receiving maintenance therapy. Only treatments with bimonthly regimens were carried out.Extrapolating toAccounting for people not covered by statutory health insurance (~13%), a total of ~1,600 PLWHIV were receiving LA therapy in Germany in December 2023.The average rounded annual cost of therapy in 2023 was €11,940 (maintenance therapy with initiation) and €10,950 (maintenance therapy without initiation).

    Keywords: Cabotegravir (CAB), Rilpivirine (RPV), long-acting (LA) HIV therapy, HIV treatment, Injectables, Germany

    Received: 20 Mar 2024; Accepted: 07 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Schmidt, Kollan and Stoll. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Daniel Schmidt, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.