As it ramps up its rollout of the first twice-yearly HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medicine, Gilead Sciences is tapping into a beloved early-aughts track to familiarize consumers with Yeztugo.
The inaugural direct-to-consumer campaign for the injectable drug debuted earlier this year, centering around a TV ad featuring a remake of Ciara and Missy Elliott’s 2004 hit song “1, 2 Step”—now rewritten as “One2PrEP.”
Gilead “worked with Ciara to be able to reimagine the lyrics to fit into the campaign,” Ashley Gildea, head of the company’s U.S. HIV prevention business unit, told Fierce Pharma Marketing in an interview.
The minute-long commercial reinforces the biannual dosing schedule in several ways: announcing the arrival of “twice-yearly PrEP,” explaining the need for only “one office visit every six months” and suggesting timing the shots to “your summer sun” and “your winter fun” or amid “your summer glow” and “your winter glam.”
The “most important aspect” of this work to spotlight Yeztugo’s six-month dosing interval, per Gildea, is its potential to improve PrEP adherence.
“The data shows that for those who are adherent and persistent to PrEP, HIV incidence is driven down, and one of the main barriers or challenges that people have is remaining adherent to their PrEP options,” the exec said. “What we see as a real differentiator and benefit here is that just-two-times-a-year office visit, which means that the individual is protected for six months on Yeztugo, and that’s really what we wanted to come through in the campaign with ‘One2PrEP.’”
The commercial went live in late January, about half a year after Yeztugo’s FDA approval, with high-profile placements during the Grammy Awards broadcast and the Super Bowl pregame show.
In the weeks since the ad’s debut, Gilead has heard not only that viewers are enjoying the song, Gildea said, but also that they’re successfully picking up on the overarching message—central to the commercial, the song and the drug name itself—of Yeztugo’s two doses per year.
“So, really exciting that both the song is catchy and sticky, and it’s resonating with exactly what we’re trying to deliver in the key message,” she said.
The commercial and broader “One2PrEP” campaign are set to continue on through 2026 “and beyond,” she said, with visibility across TV, digital, social and print channels. It’s also showing up on dating apps, in doctor’s office waiting rooms and at community events—all in an effort to “meet people where they’re at.”
Its target audience is vast: Gildea cited estimates that about 2.2 million people in the U.S. could benefit from HIV PrEP medications, but only 500,000 are currently on a preventive drug.
“There’s so much more work to do. A lot of people mistakenly believe that HIV is no longer a public health threat, and yet, here in the U.S., there are 700 new cases that occur every single week, with 100 people newly diagnosed every single day,” she said. “That’s unbelievable when you think about the therapy options that we have.”
Gilead’s campaign, then, is aimed at addressing the underlying issues behind that gap: Its primary goals are “raising awareness and education, sparking conversation and ensuring that people understand the relevance and the effectiveness of PrEP options, and making sure that they can go and have those conversations with healthcare providers,” Gildea said.
To achieve that widespread awareness, Gilead has designed the campaign to appeal not only to a broad, inclusive swath of the population but also specifically to groups that are disproportionately underrepresented in PrEP utilization, such as Black and Latino communities.
That reflects a “longstanding commitment” by Gilead to bring HIV prevention to more communities, and especially those that have historically been underserved in healthcare, per Gildea.
“So, this is what it’s all about,” she said. “We’re so excited to have a therapeutic option like Yeztugo—which has received external accolades around its clinical differentiation—and what this could do in terms of bending the arc of the HIV epidemic … and hopefully seeing no new cases of HIV if we can expand the reach and the utilization of PrEP.”