A Revolutionary Drug to Treat and Prevent HIV Infection
By John Raul Somoza
A two-decade research effort has paid off with a treatment that can disable the deadly virus’s capsid, the protein shell that protects its genome.
This Article From Issue
September-October 2025
Volume 113, Number 5
Page 288
As scientists search for new medicines, they slog through a marathon of frustration, dead ends, and moments of great excitement. Tight-knit groups of biologists and chemists often work for years to develop therapies that can prevent, control, or cure disease. Despite that effort, success is rare: The vast majority of projects never yield a compound suitable for human testing, and even those that reach clinical trials have only a 10 to 20 percent chance of becoming an approved drug.
QUICK TAKE
- Although scientists have developed effective drugs to treat and prevent HIV infections, the virus continues to mutate, requiring new drugs that are active against these mutations.
- Researchers took a new approach in developing a novel class of anti-HIV drug that disrupts the capsid, the protein shell that encloses the genome.
- The FDA approved this new drug, called lenacapavir. It is a twice-yearly injection that can treat multidrug-resistant HIV strains and prevent infections.
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