Lenacapavir for HIV-1-Potential Promise of a Long-Acting Antiretroviral Drug

As we walk through the lobby of a modern clinic for the treatment of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection or review antiretroviral regimens in the electronic medical record, it is easy to forget the days when managing multidrug-resistant HIV-1 was routine. Although the advent of protease inhibitors has saved lives,(1) many patients already had resistance mutations to then-available nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). For these patients and for others who contracted HIV infection with primary resistance, the subsequent iterative availability of new drug classes, including non-NRTIs and integrase-strand transferase inhibitors, essentially offered functional monotherapy against a background of complex . . .