CAB 92: IAS feedback, ViiV Healthcare, NHS England, HIV Charter Mark

Date: Friday 1 August 2025

Venue: Room G13, Birkbeck University London, WC1E 7HX

Programme

Slides from meeting
1. ViiV Healthcare pre-meeting – Ben Cromarty
2. NHS England Commissioning and Procurement of HIV medicines – Anna Kafkalia
3. IAS feedback – Roger Pebody and Gus Cairns
4. IAS feedback handout – Simon Collins
5. IAS 2025 feedback notes on a few studies – Simon Collins
6. HIV Charter Mark – Anne Howard

Background reading

IAS reports:

i-Base reports:  https://i-base.info/htb/date/2025

NAM reports: https://www.aidsmap.com/conferences/ias-2025

Late breakers from IAS:

• Long-acting CAB/RPV in people with suboptimal adherence: IMPALA study results at 48 weeks

This study randomised over 500 people in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa to either switch to injectable ART or switching to CAB/RPV-LA injections or stay on oral ART. People all had a history of difficult adherence or had disconnected from care. Important details include that people really liked the injections, but 5 people had viral rebound after a year compared to zero people on oral ART. The good news that 4 out of 5 were still able to switch to an integrase inhibitor. The worrying news is that 1/5 rebounded to 36,000 and that this jumped to 96,000 while waiting to be confirmed.  High viral rebound shouldn’t need the confirmatory test.

•   Potential for once-monthly oral PrEP using MK-8527

This is the once-monthly oral PrEP. Still just looking at drug levels but these look really good and would maybe give a week coverage if you are late with a dose. A little strip of 12 small pills would last a year. This is a follow-up drug to islatravir but without the same side effects.  And one pill might also work as PEP – in which case it should be and over the counter way to end transmission. Very exciting – and two large international phase 3 studies might start this year.

• • Five doses a week could be a safe option for adults: crisis response to ART stock-outs

The report is also related to the next one and generated lots of discussion. It is a review of studies using less doses every week, finding that in some countries taking 5 doses a week was as good as taking 7.  This is now included as an option in French guidelines – but also see below.

• • 5-on 2-off dosing is inferior to continuous ART in adolescents in BREATHER Plus study

A similar strategy of only taking five doses a week in this large study in adolescents found that 7 days a week was much better. This was in four African countries and trying to explain these different results is complicated. So the article gets a bit long and technical – and reflects so of the discussions researchers are having.

UK-CAB funding
The administration of the UK-CAB is through Positively UK. The costs for UK-CAB meetings are covered by support from pharmaceutical companies (see details below).

Funding by pharmaceutical companies
We ask pharmaceutical companies that have current HIV drugs to help fund the UK-CAB and the quarterly training meetings.

The funding covers the project administration, travel and accommodation for members attending from out of London, as well as the cost of catering for the four meetings. This funding helps support the UK-CAB as a national project. A list of supporting companies since the UK-CAB was established in 2002 and from the most recent two years is included below. [3]

The UK-CAB membership and the Steering Group decide the content and agendas for the programme of meetings. When the UK-CAB meets with pharmaceutical companies about their current products and future research, the decisions for which companies to invite and the agenda for these meetings is made by the UK-CAB.

We similarly ask independent researchers to actively involve the UK-CAB in planning studies and ongoing research. We ask that community involvement in research be included in the budget of grant proposals so that some of the UK-CAB work can be supported in this way by independent research.

Notes

• 1. Directors and employees of pharmaceutical companies involved in research into HIV treatment and diagnostics, or employees of agencies providing PR, marketing and other professional services for these companies may not join the UK-CAB. We work closely with industry, but the UK-CAB is a community-based network, and it is important to respect this boundary.
  2. UK-CAB cannot provide any funding for people travelling from outside England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.
  3. Since 2002, the UK-CAB has received support towards meeting costs from the following pharmaceutical companies: Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Janssen-Cilag, Koronis, Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD), Roche Laboratories, Theratechnologies, Tibotec, Pfizer, ViiV Healthcare. Since April 2012, the UK-CAB has been supported by Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), Gilead Sciences, Janssen-Cilag, Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) and ViiV Healthcare. This funding is unconnected to the programme and content of meetings.