On Sept. 24, 2025, Indian drugmakers Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Hetero Labs announced they will sell generic versions of a new and highly effective HIV prevention drug for roughly $40 per year beginning in 2027.

Lenacapavir, developed by Gilead Sciences and approved earlier this year for HIV prevention under the brand name Yeztugo, is a twice-yearly injection that was nearly 100% effective at preventing HIV in large trials.

The price tag, which will enable much broader access in low-and middle-income countries, compares with an estimated U.S. price of around $28,000 a year for branded Yeztugo. Unitaid, a WHO-hosted global health agency that works on bringing new tools and medicines to countries more cheaply, is providing technical and financial support to Dr Reddy’s for the low-cost effort, alongside the Clinton Health Access Initiative and South Africa’s Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI), part of University of the Witwatersrand.

The Gates Foundation is working with Hetero.

The two manufacturers are among six Gilead granted royalty-free licenses to last year, to produce and sell the drug in 120 low- and lower-middle income countries with the highest global HIV disease burden by 2027, subject to approvals.

“The ($40) price that we have negotiated… brings the product in parity with the cost of the oral PrEP,” Carmen Perez Casas, Unitaid’s strategic lead for HIV, told Reuters, using the short phrase for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or preventive, drugs.

Gilead is already working with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the U.S. government to get doses of its branded drug at a reduced price to 2 million people starting this year while generics ramp up production.