We are forty-five years in­to the glob­al fight against HIV, and the bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try is fac­ing a crit­i­cal in­flec­tion point. While sci­en­tif­ic progress has suc­cess­ful­ly trans­formed HIV from a fa­tal di­ag­no­sis in­to a man­age­able chron­ic con­di­tion, our work is far from over. The re­al­i­ty is that the epi­dem­ic per­sists, with more than 39,000 new HIV di­ag­noses each year in the Unit­ed States.¹ Bridg­ing the gap be­tween how well a med­i­cine works in a clin­i­cal tri­al and how it ac­tu­al­ly helps peo­ple in re­al life re­quires more than just new med­i­cines – it de­mands a fun­da­men­tal shift in how we op­er­ate, in­no­vate, and en­gage with the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.Vi­iV Health­care was es­tab­lished with a clear pur­pose: to help end the HIV epi­dem­ic. As the on­ly com­pa­ny 100% ded­i­cat­ed to HIV,  that sin­gu­lar fo­cus is our great­est strength. Every sci­en­tist in our lab­o­ra­to­ries, every com­mer­cial leader in our com­pa­ny, and every com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the field is work­ing to en­sure that no per­son liv­ing with HIV or who could ben­e­fit from HIV pre­ven­tion is left be­hind.

This com­mit­ment is what dri­ves us to de­vel­op in­no­v­a­tive op­tions, in­clud­ing the first-ever long-act­ing HIV in­jectable med­i­cines that have re­de­fined treat­ment and pre­ven­tion. It is al­so why we have es­tab­lished deep, col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ships with the di­verse com­mu­ni­ties im­pact­ed by the epi­dem­ic. Our com­mit­ment to HIV is not just an or­ga­ni­za­tion­al choice; it is the dri­ving force that al­lows us to make the great­est pos­si­ble im­pact on the lives of those we serve.

At the heart of our clin­i­cal suc­cess is the demon­strat­ed pow­er of the in­te­grase strand trans­fer in­hibitor (IN­STI) class of med­i­cines.  Our sci­en­tists de­vel­oped these med­i­cines and have spent the last 15 years build­ing on them, mak­ing sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion IN­STIs the gold stan­dard of HIV reg­i­mens world­wide. Trust­ed by clin­i­cians for their ex­cep­tion­al po­ten­cy, long-term tol­er­a­bil­i­ty, and high bar­ri­er to re­sis­tance, our sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion IN­STIs form the bedrock of both our cur­rent port­fo­lio and fu­ture pipeline.

A tes­ta­ment to this glob­al reach is our IN­STI, do­lute­gravir; by the end of 2025, more than 26 mil­lion peo­ple across 129 coun­tries had ac­cess to a gener­ic prod­uct con­tain­ing this Vi­iV-pi­o­neered med­i­cine, rep­re­sent­ing at least 90% of peo­ple liv­ing with HIV on an­ti­retro­vi­rals in gener­ic-ac­ces­si­ble, low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries.²

But im­por­tant­ly, even with high­ly ef­fec­tive med­i­cines, there can be a gap be­tween what a med­i­cine can do in re­search and what pa­tients ex­pe­ri­ence day-to-day. Dai­ly oral pill reg­i­mens can present re­al chal­lenges, in­clud­ing pill fa­tigue, dai­ly anx­i­ety, and the per­sis­tent fear of dis­clo­sure due to the stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with tak­ing HIV med­ica­tion.  To ad­dress these re­al-world bar­ri­ers, we knew the land­scape of care had to evolve be­yond the dai­ly dose.

This evo­lu­tion led to Vi­iV Health­care’s in­tro­duc­tion of the first-ever long-act­ing in­jectable (LAI) op­tions for HIV treat­ment and pre­ven­tion, mark­ing a par­a­digm shift in HIV care de­liv­ery. By of­fer­ing op­tions that can al­low for greater dis­cre­tion and an al­ter­na­tive dos­ing sched­ule, LAIs can help in­di­vid­u­als over­come dai­ly re­minders of liv­ing with HIV while sup­port­ing greater per­son­al choice in man­ag­ing their long-term health.

To ful­ly re­al­ize the po­ten­tial pos­i­tive im­pact of long-act­ing in­jectable op­tions, ex­pand­ing aware­ness of and ac­cess to these choic­es is key. On the treat­ment side, peo­ple liv­ing with HIV con­sis­tent­ly re­port that they pre­fer long-act­ing treat­ment over their dai­ly pills.³ When it comes to pre­ven­tion, a sig­nif­i­cant gap re­mains: on­ly about 25% of those who could ben­e­fit from pre­ven­tion are cur­rent­ly tak­ing pre-ex­po­sure pro­phy­lax­is, known as PrEP—a high­ly ef­fec­tive pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion tak­en by HIV-neg­a­tive in­di­vid­u­als to pre­vent the ac­qui­si­tion of HIV.⁴

Fur­ther­more, when peo­ple choos­ing LAIs per­sist with their med­i­cine and at­tend dos­ing ap­point­ments, as re­quired, health­care providers may have a bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ty to main­tain mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions with pa­tients, reg­u­lar­ly mon­i­tor well­ness, and of­fer com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health ser­vices, in­clud­ing more fre­quent STI test­ing.

Just as we aim for med­i­cine to fit seam­less­ly in­to pa­tients’ lives, its ac­tu­al use is con­nect­ed to the sys­tems and struc­tures that sup­port the com­mu­ni­ties we serve. In HIV care, deep-seat­ed sys­temic dis­par­i­ties dri­ven by race, ge­og­ra­phy, and so­cioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus of­ten man­i­fest as un­equal ac­cess to care and re­sources; stig­ma per­sists, and even the most promis­ing med­ical in­no­va­tion can face chal­lenges.

Be­cause of this, a strong re­sponse to the epi­dem­ic can­not stop at the doc­tor’s of­fice; it re­quires in­vest­ing in the grass­roots in­fra­struc­ture of health­care. Through our Pos­i­tive Ac­tion giv­ing pro­gram, Vi­iV Health­care works hand-in-hand with com­mu­ni­ties to reach pop­u­la­tions most im­pact­ed by HIV. This pro­gram has pro­vid­ed over $154 mil­lion to more than 470 com­mu­ni­ty-based or­ga­ni­za­tions across the U.S. and Puer­to Ri­co be­tween 2020 and 2025.⁵ And our ded­i­cat­ed Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Com­mu­ni­ty Li­aisons work with­in nine key U.S. cities to con­nect lo­cal ad­vo­cates and pa­tients with the ed­u­ca­tion, re­sources, and path­ways to care they need.

As we look to the fu­ture, we aim to con­tin­ue of­fer­ing more op­tions than ever, in­clud­ing longer-act­ing reg­i­mens.

A year ago, An­throp­ic’s life sci­ences plans were ba­si­cal­ly just a blog post by its CEO.

In late 2024, Dario Amod­ei wrote a 13,000-word memo...