Men Are Not Macaques and Other Lessons From Long-Acting PrEP Study

Imagine seeing a patient every eight weeks for a few quick injections into the buttocks that could prevent HIV between appointments.

That’s the promise of the ÉCLAIR trial of the investigational integrase strand transfer inhibitor cabotegravir, which had its phase-2 results unveiled at CROI 2016 in February. ÉCLAIR was one of two trials of long-acting injectable HIV-prevention programs presented at the conference.

“Cabotegravir in oral and long-acting injections were well tolerated,” said Martin Markowitz, M.D., the trial’s primary investigator, in his presentation at CROI. “We feel this does permit continued development of cabotegravir for PrEP [pre-exposure prophylaxis].”

Designing Long-Acting Agents

This study was a phase-2 trial — that is, it wasn’t designed to figure out how effective the drug was in preventing HIV acquisition in the mostly gay and bisexual men who participated in the trial. It had more fundamental things to figure out first: whether it was safe for human use, what dose would maintain effectiveness between doctors’ visits and whether men liked the approach enough to take it.

On all counts, the answer appears to be, “Yes.”

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During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office. (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. We recommend requesting medication at least 2 weeks in advance in case of delivery delays, particularly to rural/remote parts of BC. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below