Bridging Gaps in HIV Care Through Pharmacy-Based Solutions

On the final day of the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Katrina Ortblad, ScD, MPH, implementation scientist and assistant professor, Cancer Prevention Program, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, presented “Leveraging Private-Sector Pharmacies to Expand the Reach of Biomedical HIV Prevention Interventions.” Collaborating with researchers from the Kenya Medical Research Institute in Kenya, they design and test novel delivery models for HIV services.

Here she discusses findings of an investigation that looked at expanding HIV prevention services through private-sector pharmacies, with goals being to expand delivery of pre- (PrEP) and postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) and reduce care disparities.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Can you discuss top highlights from your research on private-sector, pharmacy-based HIV service delivery?

Private-sector HIV service delivery might help bridge funding gaps and could be enabled through public-private partnership models. Private pharmacies can reach individuals underrepresented at public clinics, like young, unmarried individuals, overcome barriers to clinic-delivered PrEP services like HIV-associated stigma, and deliver time-sensitive PEP services, enabling the option of HIV prevention products among those [who] could benefit. Additionally, the Kenya model for pharmacy-delivered oral PrEP and PEP services can serve as a template for other countries interested in leveraging private-sector pharmacies for the delivery of these products; for the delivery of new PrEP products, including long-acting injectables and the dual-acting prevention pill; as well as for the delivery of other products, such as those for HIV treatment, STI [sexually transmitted infection] screening and prevention, cancer screening and prevention, and beyond.

How can patient-centered HIV PrEP delivery models be integrated with pharmacy-based services to improve equitable care access and treatment adherence?

I think our findings suggest that pharmacy-delivered PrEP services themselves are patient centered. In qualitative research that we've conducted, clients really liked the privacy, accessibility, and quality of pharmacy-delivered PrEP services. When you go to a pharmacy, no one knows what you've gone there to purchase. Pharmacies have extended hours of operation into the evenings and on the weekends, when the clinics are often closed, and pharmacy providers are incentivized to deliver client-centered services if they want clients to return for repeat business. However, there's always opportunities for improvement. During rush hour, pharmacy providers often struggle to provide quality counseling and HIV testing services, so there's opportunities there to add telemedicine or maybe AI [artificial intelligence] bots to assist them. Also, if fees are associated with this model in the future, there's opportunities to introduce maybe coupons or vouchers for particular populations that may not be able to pay for the convenience of pharmacy-delivery PrEP services.