- Potential cuts to CDC funding
- Part of wider cost saving plans
- 1.2 million people living with HIV
News that the US health department is reviewing CDC’s (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) HIV prevention division amidst potential funding cuts sent shares in Gilead Sciences (GILD:NASDAQ) down 3% in premarket trading, while GSK (GSK) shares fell 2%.
Both companies are big players in the prevention and treatment of HIV with GSK’s majority-owned ViiV Healthcare division being fully dedicated to the disease.
Gilead is awaiting regulatory approval for its next generation HIV vaccine lenacapavir which is taken twice a year. Analysts at Morgan Stanley forecast the drug could generate $6 billion in sales by 2030.
GSK’s HIV franchise generated sales of $7.1 billion in 2024, up 13% year on year.
The CDC has a department dedicated to the prevention of HIV and other infectious diseases which spent $1.3 billion in 2023 according to the organisation’s website.
Around three-quarters of its funds for preventing infectious diseases go to organisations outside the CDC including state and local health departments to prevent or respond to outbreaks.
There are an estimated 1.2 million people living with HIV in the US and around 13% of them are not aware they have the disease, according to the CDC.
REORGANISATION OF CDC
The Wall Steet Journal reported the Trump administration is preparing to make deep cuts of personnel as part of a wider reorganisation of the CDC.
The Health and Human Services Department said it is following guidance from the administration to take a careful look at all divisions to see if there are overlaps which could be streamlined and made more efficient.
The Trump administration has already made cuts to the president’s emergency plan for AIDS Relief which supplies anti-retroviral drugs to millions of people across the globe.
It has also suspended the work done by the US Agency for International Development.
