The Global Need

Approximately 34 million people around the world are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Combination antiretroviral therapy has enabled many patients to live with HIV as a chronic, manageable disease - yet fewer than half of the more than 15 million people now in need of HIV therapy are receiving it. Within five years, the number of people in need of treatment is expected to grow to as many as 30 million. Nearly all these patients in need will be in developing countries, where almost 95 percent of people with HIV live.

Gilead's Role

The World Health Organization recommends Gilead's once-daily medicines Viread® (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) and Truvada® (emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate) as components of HIV therapy for patients beginning treatment. To ensure that these medicines are affordable and available in developing countries, Gilead pursues a comprehensive range of HIV-related access activities, including:

• Offering significant discounts on these medications in the following countries. Learn more
• Partnering with distributors, manufacturers and the Medicines Patent Pool Foundation to make both branded and generic versions of our medicines widely available Learn more
• Registering products with national regulatory authorities Learn more
• Providing partners with rights to manufacture and sell future generic versions of our pipeline-stage HIV therapies currently completing clinical development Learn more
• Prioritizing development of pediatric formulations of our medicines, to meet the global need for HIV therapy appropriate for children
• Conducting medical education programs to ensure healthcare providers are informed about the proper use of Gilead medicines
• Actively supporting clinical studies designed to examine the safety, tolerability and effectiveness of different Viread-containing regimens

Progress to Date

Through our access efforts, 2.1 million patients in the developing world are now receiving high-quality, low-cost branded or generic versions of Gilead's HIV therapies. This represents nearly one-third of all people in developing countries on any form of HIV treatment, and is a tremendous increase in our reach since the Access Program began in 2003. Over the years we have actively worked to adapt and improve our access initiatives, incorporating feedback from many different stakeholders, and we continue to closely monitor our efforts with the goal of expanding access to our medicines to reach as many patients as possible.

For More Information

• A detailed report on the evolution of our access efforts from 2003 to 2010 (PDF)
• Click here to download an overview of Gilead 's Access Program. (PDF)