Published in: March-April 2017 issue.
IN 2012, San Francisco-based biopharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences launched Truvada as the first antiviral drug approved by the FDA as a means of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention. A 2010 clinical trial that found that a daily prophylactic given to HIV-negative men who have sex with men was more than ninety percent effective at preventing HIV infection. Since then, health experts have hailed Truvada as an opportunity to prevent the transmission of the virus for around a million at-risk Americans.