FDA panel recommends approval of drug to prevent HIV infection

By Brian Vastag, WashPost

For the first time in the 30-year battle against the HIV epidemic, a panel of experts has recommended that the Food and Drug Administration approve a drug to give to healthy people to protect against the infection.

The panel recommended Thursday that the agency approve the drug Truvada for preventing HIV in men who have sex with men, HIV-negative partners of HIV-postive people and “other individuals at risk for acquiring HIV through sexual activity.”

The FDA usually follows the advice of its advisory committees, which are made up of experts from outside the agency, although it does not have to. Its decision is expected by June 15.

FDA approval would mark a watershed moment in the fight against an epidemic that still causes 50,000 new infections a year in the United States. Worldwide, according to the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, 2.7 million new infections occur annually.

(More here.)