ViiV Healthcare has tapped a new mind for its “PrEP Wisdom” campaign, with Tony Award-winning actor and fashion icon Jeremy Pope joining in on the education and awareness messaging around long-acting injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) options.
The campaign and its associated website launched in June with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” judge Michelle Visage, who signed on to encourage people to get “PrEP wise” and make informed decisions about long-acting injectable options for HIV prevention. Pope spreads the same message in his new spots, which will reach digital, broadcast, cable and social platforms, according to ViiV.
In one 15-second video, Pope is hanging on a brightly colored porch with friends.
“A good kiki? That’s where the truth comes out,” he says to the camera. “With injectable PrEP options, the truth is there are differences in addition to the dosing schedules.”
Culturally resonant slang terms like “kiki,” which has its roots in Black LGBTQ ballroom culture, are used throughout the campaign. ViiV hopes this kind of language can “cut through the clutter” and prompt its audience to “stop and pause for a minute and pay attention to the messages of the campaign,” head of U.S. ViiV enterprise communications Bithiah Lafont told Fierce in a recent interview.
HIV disproportionately impacts Black communities in the U.S., according to the CDC, and recent research points to a high unmet need for PrEP in Black men and women. Across the U.S. overall, only 25% of the 2.2 million people who might benefit from PrEP are currently utilizing it, ViiV has said.
After Gilead Sciences launched Truvada, the first FDA-approved PrEP medication, in 2012, the market was dominated by daily oral options for nearly a decade. That changed in 2021, when ViiV Healthcare's Apretude became the first FDA-approved long-acting injectable PrEP medication. Gilead expanded the market further last year with Yeztugo, a twice-yearly injectable PrEP option.
Much of the buzz around long-acting injectable options has centered on the dosing schedule each can offer, but ViiV and “PrEP Wisdom” look to draw attention to other factors that could play into choice in PrEP. The campaign website encourages people to ask their doctor about potential injection-site reactions, medicine interactions and other considerations that can determine “an option that fits your lifestyle and goals.”
Pope has been a “great advocate” for the campaign, Lafont said. “Lending his voice and lending his time to this has really boosted our ability to get conversation out to different communities.”
ViiV designed the campaign website with bright colors and playful fonts to make it feel less like a traditional pharma ad, Lafont said. Since its June launch, the site has sparked conversations online and generated social media engagement, supporting the campaign's broader goal of driving behavior change.
“A lot of the change that we’re hoping to see is going to be reflected in those conversations that people are having with their providers,” Lafont explained. “We know that PrEP is one of the best ways for people to prevent HIV, and we also know that the majority of people who could benefit from PrEP are not taking PrEP, and largely that's because either their doctors are not having the conversation or they're not asking their doctors about it.”
She emphasized the importance of informed conversations about PrEP options as the number of long-acting treatments available continues to grow.
As the first company to enter the long-acting injectable PrEP market, ViiV has seen attitudes toward injectable treatments evolve. Lafont pointed to the growing popularity of injectable GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and obesity as one factor contributing to greater acceptance of injectable medicines. Despite that shift, she emphasized that PrEP uptake must increase to make meaningful progress in combating the HIV epidemic.
ViiV, which is majority-owned by GSK and focuses exclusively on HIV, has seen strong growth in its long-acting injectable portfolio. GSK reported that long-acting injectables accounted for 80% of its HIV sales growth in the third quarter, with Apretude generating £403 million ($538.7 million) in sales through the first nine months of 2026. Meanwhile, Gilead's competing Yeztugo brought in $702 million over the same period.
GSK has long maintained that Yeztugo won't dominate the long-acting injectable PrEP market, with executives citing potential tolerability concerns, injection-site nodules and drug interactions as factors that could limit its appeal. The rival drug “definitely won’t be for everyone,” GSK's president of corporate development, David Redfern, said in early 2025.
Still, both companies share a mission to increase U.S. PrEP uptake and normalize conversations around HIV prevention. Gilead recently targeted Hispanic and Latino communities in its “Ahorita Mismo" campaign, while ViiV told prospective HIV treatment or PrEP users to “Do It For Future You” in a recent multichannel campaign.