RTI International is working with the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, to develop and test a new device whose use can prevent HIV for up to three months.

For the project, RTI and its partners will receive up to $11.6 million over five years from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through USAID. The USAID administers the U.S. foreign assistance program providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide.

The proposed device would be injected and remain in the body carrying an anti-HIV therapeutic. RTI says that because the device is injectable and long-lasting, it offers more discretion to people using the technology, which overcomes other HIV prevention methods such as vaginal gels, rings and oral medications.

The injection can be administered by lower-skilled staff, making it easier to offer in locations that have limited medical resources The device will also break down naturally in the body, which removes the need for another clinic visit to remove the device after the therapeutic is depleted. But RTI said that if the need to remove the device arises, it can be removed after insertion. That means that unlike long-acting antiretroviral techologies still being developed, the new device is reversible if the patient experiences serious adverse side effects.

The University of California, San Francisco and Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation (MRWIF) at the University of Pittsburgh, RTI’s collaborators on the project, will develop a novel sustained-release delivery system for different classes of antiretroviral agents. The goal is to develop a way to deliver the agents in a way that improves the effectiveness, acceptability, usage and accessibility of existing microbicide and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis delivery systems.

The partners will handle pilot manufacturing and other prepartions for clinical studies of the technology, which they will test in a phase I clinical trial of the antiretroviral-device combination in healthy human volunteers.