Deborah Waterhouse seems made for her job. As chief executive of ViiV Healthcare, a specialist drugs firm under the control of UK pharma giant GSK, she is at the forefront of fighting HIV.
‘This is an area that I’m phenomenally passionate about. So I’ve been very lucky to run this business for the last seven years,’ she says ahead of GSK’s latest financial update today.
ViiV is majority-owned by GSK but rival pharma group Pfizer and Japanese outfit Shionogi have large stakes.
Before she was appointed boss in 2017, Waterhouse already had a long pedigree at GSK.
The Birmingham-born daughter of a butcher and teacher, she joined the pharma group in 1996 and spent three decades climbing the corporate ladder.
Leading the effort: ViiV Healthcare chief executive Deborah Waterhouse is at the forefront of fighting HIV
But leading the HIV effort has always been her dream job. At the GSK corporate HQ in London, she explains her passion comes mainly from conversations with people living with HIV.
‘You feel a burning desire to help that community to live a thriving life with a very stigmatised disease,’ says Waterhouse.
Her husband is from South Africa, a country that has one of the largest populations of HIV-positive people and she has seen ‘just how devastating the disease is’ to individuals and the economy.
‘You usually acquire this disease in your 20s when you should be going into the labour market, working for yourself or your family and setting yourself up for a life.
‘That is why HIV has such profound economic consequences for people and countries,’ she says.
GSK is no stranger to HIV treatments. In the 1980s, one of its predecessors, Burroughs Wellcome, developed zidovudine, the first medicine used for the treatment of HIV and AIDS.
While the virus is no longer the death sentence that it was 40 years ago, Waterhouse notes that those who have it face intense difficulties in daily life.
‘People who are HIV-positive still have to take medication every day to suppress the virus,’ she explains.
‘People tell us that, for most of them, taking a tablet every day is fine but it reminds them of the disease they are living with.
‘It’s very self-stigmatising. Others are terrified of disclosing that they are HIV-positive because of that judgment.
‘And some people find it very difficult to take a tablet every day. And it needs to be every day to keep the virus suppressed.’
As a result, Waterhouse says one of the company’s key aims is developing new treatments that allow people living with the condition to take medication ‘less frequently and more discreetly’.
This has helped to drive the development of one of its main products – cabotegravir plus rilpivirine – an injection which a person only needs to take once every two months.
‘That’s made a massive difference to people who are living with HIV. They can now talk about freedom from the condition,’ Waterhouse says.
She adds that the firm also has a similar drug for HIV prevention that protects people from acquiring the virus by taking an injection every two months.
Demand for these longer-acting treatments has boosted sales significantly, and the company recently upgraded its guidance for the five years to 2026.
But Waterhouse says two months is just the start and the company is moving forward with longer-acting treatments.
‘We now have an opportunity to launch a treatment that only needs to be taken every four months and we also have a path towards a six-month injection,’ she explains, adding that once-a-year treatments will probably be available in the early part of the next decade.
But she downplays the concept of ‘curing’ HIV, highlighting that the virus cannot be entirely removed from the body.
‘It’s more like [cancer] remission, where you can take so much of the virus out of the body that you may be able to go two years without needing treatment,’ she says.
Hanging in her office is a large painting featuring images and messages from people living with HIV.
‘That inspires me every day,’ Waterhouse says.
‘I just want to make a difference to this epidemic. It’s a personal crusade.’
