On 14 May 2026 in New York City, IFPMA delivered a statement at the Multi-Stakeholder Hearing ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS.

The 2026 High-Level Meeting comes at a sensitive but important moment for the global HIV response. Meaningful progress has been made, but it remains fragile, uneven, and vulnerable to reversal if political attention, funding, and implementation momentum weakens.

New infections, late diagnosis, persistent inequities, uneven prevention uptake, and health system gaps continue to slow progress. At the same time, the epidemiology of HIV is evolving, with growing numbers of older people and women living with HIV, bringing new long-term care and prevention considerations that health systems must be prepared to address. The political declaration should therefore recognize HIV requires urgent and sustained political leadership, community agency, and financing to drive implementation, outcomes, and accountability for impact.

First, we encourage Member States to sustain HIV as an urgent health priority. Stable and predictable financing remains essential, including through mobilizing diversified financing models at national, regional, and global levels.

Second, accelerating progress will require sustaining rapid development and uptake of innovation across prevention, testing, treatment, and care. Biomedical innovation has transformed HIV care, enabling people living with HIV and those who could benefit from innovative prevention options to live full, active, and productive lives.

Future progress will depend on continued innovation in diagnostics, alongside advances in viral load monitoring. This should be combined with swift access to long-acting prevention options, and treatment approaches that support stable adherence, enhance health-related quality of life, and promote investment in R&D, with the aim of also developing an HIV vaccine and cure.

Innovation and equitable access are mutually reinforcing, not competing objectives. The political declaration should support policy environments that enable, protect, and value discovery, research, and development, while strengthening practical pathways for timely, sustainable, and equitable access.

Third, ambitious HIV goals will only be realized if matched by practical delivery measures across the full cascade: reaching people with prevention and testing, ensuring timely diagnosis and rapid linkage to care, initiating effective treatment, supporting retention and adherence, and achieving and sustaining viral suppression. This includes people-centred integrated primary care, treatment choice and optionality, enhancing workforce capacity, differentiated service delivery, community-led testing, self-testing, routine and opt-out testing where appropriate, and stronger integration of HIV services into broader health systems.

IFPMA and its members stand ready to contribute constructively through R&D, manufacturing, partnerships, support for innovation, and practical, evidence-based solutions that strengthen country-led leadership and implementation to sustain long-term progress.

Thank you.

About IFPMA

IFPMA represents the innovative pharmaceutical industry at the international level, engaging in official relations with the United Nations and multilateral organizations. Our vision is to ensure that scientific progress translates into the next generation of medicines and vaccines that deliver a healthier future for people everywhere.

To achieve this, we act as a trusted partner, bringing our members' expertise to champion pharmaceutical innovation, drive policy that supports the research, development, and delivery of health technologies, and create sustainable solutions that advance global health.

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Media Contact

Elliot Dunster e.dunster@ifpma.org