Preexposure Prophylaxis Use Increased in Recent Years

MONDAY, Oct. 21, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use increased between 2013 and 2023, according to a research letter published online Oct. 14 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Laura M. Mann, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues used the IQVIA Real-World Longitudinal Prescription Data database (2013 to 2023) to examine trends in PrEP medication prescriptions in the United States.

The researchers found that a cumulative 1.1 million persons were prescribed oral or injectable PrEP during the study period; 88.6 percent were men. There was an increase in the annual number of PrEP users from 10,281 in 2013 to 505,730 in 2023. From January 2013 to September 2019, the monthly use of branded tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) increased but decreased after the generic became available. Generic TDF/FTC reached the highest monthly share of users among all medications from December 2021 to December 2023. Oral PrEP accounted for a cumulative 99 percent of persons prescribed PrEP from 2013 to 2023. Following injectable cabotegravir availability in 2022, prescriptions increased from 1.1 percent in 2022 to 2.5 percent in 2023.

"New PrEP medications are heavily marketed, yet, generic PrEP dominated the market despite the availability of three branded medications," the authors write. "This could be attributed to a 2021 federal guidance directing insurers to cover the cost of generic PrEP medication without patient cost-sharing, suggesting that effective health policy can result in lower health care expenditures."

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