Leading figures urge drugs firm to lower price of ‘game-changing’ HIV treatment

High-profile signatories issue a letter asking ViiV to make Cabotegravir affordable to low- and middle-income countries

Nobel laureates, business leaders, former premiers and celebrities have urged a UK pharmaceutical company to lower the price of its groundbreaking HIV prevention drug and ensure it is not kept out of reach" of the world's poor.

In a letter signed by dozens of high-profile figures, including Sir Richard Branson, the singer Olly Alexander, the economist Joseph Stiglitz and Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand, the pharmaceutical company ViiV Healthcare is praised for having developed the first of a new kind of HIV prevention drug.