A man and a woman carry a luminous vial together, a door opens and the couple enters a virus. It is with this enigmatic drawing, created by the Italian illustrator Sara Gironi Carnevale, that the magazine Science announces what it considers to be the biggest breakthrough of the year 2024: the arrival of a drug, lenacapavir, which helps protect against HIV infections.
Thanks to a simple method of administration, two injections per year, and discreet, avoiding the stigma of taking a daily tablet, lenacapavir serves as an ideal molecule as part of a pre-exposure prophylaxis strategy, it that is, a medication that populations at risk of infection would take to prevent HIV infection during unprotected sex.
An original target
Above all, the results of clinical trials are unexpected. “A vast study, published in June [dans New England Journal of Medicine]conducted among adolescent girls and young women in Africa, showed that the injections reduced the number of infections to zero – a remarkable 100% effectiveness. noted Science in a general public article.
“And, if there were any doubts about this result, they were removed three months later with the publication of a similar trial.” This time the clinical trial was conducted in four continents (Africa, Asia, South America and the United States), people (women and men, transgender or cisgender) who received injections had unprotected sex with men. It showed that this strategy was 99.9% effective.
“But that's not the only reason why Science named lenacapavir 'breakthrough of the year 2024'”, explains the magazine. Its original mode of action could in fact be replicated for other viruses which also have a capsid. Because, unlike other antivirals, lenacapavir targets the HIV capsid, a set of proteins that form a shield around the virus's genetic material. For a long time, researchers believed that several molecules would be needed to break down this shield. With lenacapavir, they realize that just one may be enough.
[…] Read more on International Mail
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