The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug lenacapavir as a twice-yearly injection to prevent HIV.

The drug, called Yeztugo from company Gilead Sciences, was approved Wednesday based on data from clinical trials that showed 99.9% of participants who received it remained HIV negative.

Daniel O’Day, Gilead’s chairman and chief executive officer, called the approval a “milestone moment in the decades-long fight against HIV.”

“Yeztugo will help us prevent HIV on a scale never seen before. We now have a way to end the HIV epidemic once and for all,” O’Day said in a news release.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 31,800 estimated new HIV infections in the United States in 2022, the most recent year with available data.

While the drug’s approval meets an existing need, the Trump administration’s funding decisions have rolled back progress for a vaccine.

Last month, the administration moved to end funding for a broad swath of HIV vaccine research, saying current approaches are enough to counter the virus.