A new one-a-day-pill holds promise for HIV's 'forgotten population'
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It's designed to take the place of complicated, multiple drug regimens that many people with HIV need to follow. And it's also beneficial because the HIV virus is always evolving. (Image credit: Science Source )
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Global Health A new one-a-day-pill holds promise for HIV's 'forgotten population' March 3, 2026 11:43 AM ET By Gabrielle Emanuel A cell infected wth the human immunodeficiency virus . This is a color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph image. The drug maker Gilead has announced a new one-a-day pill to keep the virus in check. It's intended for people with HIV who are unable to take other once daily anti-HIV medications and currently are on a multiple-drug regimen. Science Source hide caption toggle caption Science Source Is there one pill a day to keep me healthy? That's a question that Dr. Chloe Orkin hears a lot from her older HIV patients who take many medications each day to keep the virus under control. "They keep asking: 'Why can't I have a single pill? Or can I have injections?' And you have to keep saying: 'No,'" explains Orkin , who is a physician and a researcher at Queen Mary University of London. It's not a pipe dream. Most of the world's 40 million HIV patients can already take a single daily pill each day to keep the virus at bay or injections every two months. But these treatment options don't work for many of Orkin's patients, especially the HIV patients who were diagnosed in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, in the '80s and '90s "while we were learning about how to treat HIV," says Orkin. "They had drugs that didn't work that well, and therefore they developed some resistance to these medications." Another group of HIV patients who've developed resistance are those who have not been able to take their HIV medications consistently. The result? These individuals must take many pills, multiple times a day, to keep the virus in check. Orkin says this is challenging logistically but also because some of the drugs have side effects — such as diarrhea — and some patients are taking medications for other conditions that can have problematic interactions with the HIV medications. For example, Orkin says, a type of HIV medication, called boosted protease...
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