Gilead’s $35 HIV Prevention Pill Fails to Win Support
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Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Truvada topped Time magazine’s list of medical breakthroughs for 2010 after a study showed it may achieve a goal pursued by scientists for a quarter-century: a pill to prevent HIV infection.
Three months later, the advance has hit a wall. While study findings show the drug prevents HIV in non-infected, sexually active gay men, doctors say they’re wary about giving healthy people a $12,000-a-year medicine that has side effects including nausea and kidney damage, and may not be used as regularly as needed. They also say they’re not often asked to make the drug available for that use.