(Reuters) - ViiV Healthcare, GlaxoSmithKline Plc's HIV unit, said on Thursday it started an African study to evaluate long-acting injectable drug for the prevention of HIV infection in sexually active women.
The cabotegravir study seeks to enrol 3,200 women aged 18 to 45 years from sub-Saharan African countries, ViiV Healthcare said in a statement.
The HPTN 084 Phase III study will evaluate injections given every two months, ViiV Healthcare said.
The study is being conducted through a public-private funding by ViiV Healthcare, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the company said.
Viiv Healthcare in 2016 had started a large study on HIV-uninfected men and transgender women who have sex with men to test an experimental long-acting injection for preventing the virus that causes AIDS.
(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Akshay Lodaya)
