29 July 2016

We are sorry to announce that PROUD has to close according to the plan agreed in January, which allowed for one visit after the anticipated NHS England decision in June. This decision never took place. The NHS England announcement of 21 March 2016 implied a commitment to PROUD participants that continue to need PrEP. However, it transpires that this commitment is contained within the £2M set aside for early implementer sites. Public Health England (PHE) is working, with partners, on the design of the early implementer sites but these will not be launched until 2017. Gilead is also planning a study to compare Truvada (the drug used in PROUD) to F/TAF (a new version of Truvada). The study is called DISCOVER and everyone in the study will get PrEP.  DISCOVER is likely to start in the next 6 months.

In June this year we found out that NHS England had no separate plan for PROUD participants.

We wrote to Gilead with a request for a donation of drug for PROUD participants to bridge the gap between PROUD closing and the PHE/DISCOVER studies starting. Gilead is considering this request, but could not activate it until October as they won’t have approval for Truvada as PrEP in Europe until then.

It is legal in the UK to purchase drug for personal use and you can find out more about how to do this on the following websites:

http://www.iwantprepnow.co.uk/

http://prepster.info/

If you decide to do this, please read the following article and order drug in plenty of time so that you don’t run out.

http://i-base.info/uk-guide-to-prep/

Prepster also has information on what you can do to call for increased access to PreP in the UK.

We thank the PROUD participants for taking part in a study that has accelerated access to PrEP globally, if not yet at home.