When the innovative new HIV drug dolutegravir (DTG) was approved in 2014 – faster working, with fewer side effects, less prone to resistance and with the potential to be less expensive than the existing first-line ART at the time – Unitaid brought together partners, including the Medicines Patent Pool, manufacturers, researchers, communities and scale-up partners like the Global Fund to make DTG affordable and accessible.
We partnered with research institutions to generate evidence for use of dolutegravir in different sub-populations, including people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, neonates and pregnant women, and supported market interventions and worked with communities for introducing and scaling up the new DTG regimen. In just three years, DTG was introduced in low- and middle-income countries – three times faster than previous regimens.
In this video, we show how Unitaid led the way in introducing dolutegravir – now the world’s “best-in-class” antiretroviral treatment – three years faster than previous drugs.
