{"id":46810,"date":"2026-09-29T15:33:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=46810"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:36:58","slug":"kenyan-firm-to-produce-monthly-hiv-pill","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenyan-firm-to-produce-monthly-hiv-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan firm to produce monthly HIV pill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kenyan pharmaceutical manufacturer Universal Corporation Limited has been granted a royalty-free voluntary license by global drugmaker Merck to produce a generic version of an investigational once-monthly oral HIV prevention pill.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the breakthrough, Grassroots Journalism Kenya Team Leader Dennis Beru highlighted that local clinical trials are directly shaping the medicine&#8217;s development. &#8220;The Kenya-based research is therefore part of the clinical evidence being generated in the same region where the medicine could eventually be manufactured and used,&#8221; Beru noted.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The drug, known as alimatravir or MK-8527, is undergoing Phase 3 trials in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa (SA) to establish local efficacy. The agreement covers distribution across 129 low- and middle-income nations, with Ugandan and SA manufacturers also joining the regional effort.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":46811,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-46810","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Universal Corporation granted license to Kenya to produce generic once monthly HIV preventative pill ","published_date":"2026-09-29 15:32:33","news_description":"Universal Corporation granted license to Kenya to produce generic once monthly HIV preventative pill ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46812,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46810\/revisions\/46812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=46810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}