HIV Market Tracker: Building a Three-Year Point of View
Ran continuous quarterly tracking across the HIV market and surfaced a non-obvious unmet need hidden beneath apparent saturation
Janhvi M.
Consultant at Trinity Life Sciences
From their time as
Associate
Trinity Life Sciences • 2023 - 2024
Overview
Janhvi has worked on HIV projects continuously across her three years at Trinity, running quarterly and bi-annual tracking studies that follow product performance, market share, and stakeholder perceptions over time. That sustained exposure gave her something most project-based researchers do not develop: a genuine point of view on where a market is heading.
The Story
Janhvi has worked on HIV projects continuously across her three years at Trinity, running quarterly and bi-annual tracking studies that follow product performance, market share, and stakeholder perceptions over time. That sustained exposure gave her something most project-based researchers do not develop: a genuine point of view on where a market is heading.
On the surface, the HIV market looks saturated. Once-daily oral pills are widely available, patients can switch products if one stops working, and clinical outcomes are generally strong. The standard read is that there is little room for meaningful innovation.
The Insight Beneath the Surface
Janhvi's patient interviews told a different story. While the physical burden of treatment was low, the mental and social burden remained significant. Patients carrying daily pills faced a persistent stigma problem: the pills themselves were a visible, daily reminder of their diagnosis, and many patients did not want others to know.
That insight pointed toward a different axis of innovation: not efficacy, but dosing frequency. When Janhvi's team ran a Simalto exercise asking patients to trade off product attributes, dosing frequency emerged as a high-priority lever. Patients were willing to trade other attributes for less frequent dosing, even accepting a once-weekly pill over a daily one, because the psychological relief of not carrying pills every day was meaningful to them.
Market Validation
The market has since moved in the direction the research pointed. A once-every-three-months injectable treatment launched and captured approximately one-third of the HIV market shortly after launch, validating the patient preference signal Janhvi's team had been tracking.
Her current view is that the innovation runway extends well beyond three months. As dosing intervals lengthen toward six months or annually, patient uptake will continue to grow, because the stigma burden compounds over time and patients place increasing value on reducing it.