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Ben Labrot
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Jun 30, 2026
Undetectable, Then Detectable: Decoding the HIV “Viral Blip”
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4:14Ben PlumleyHOST
Why are you both so interested in this specific laboratory phenomenon, the viral blip? Why is it important or perhaps why is it more important to explain it to the patient than it is as perhaps a clinical finding?

Ben LaBrotGUEST
So the reason this sort of came to top of mind for me this year was in my role as Roche's medical affairs kind of global lead for molecular HIV diagnostics, I often get pulled into calls with customers who are having difficulty or having questions about the use of kind of our assays in their lab.

Ben LaBrotGUEST
And I felt like this calendar year, I participated in more support calls for laboratories that were concerned about increasing frequency of blips in their results than I have been in the rest of my five years at Roche, just this calendar year.

Ben LaBrotGUEST
I'm not really sure why it seems to have spiraled up so much, but the pattern is always the same.

Ben LaBrotGUEST
The labs, so we've seen an increase in the kind of detectable versus non-detectable patients.

Ben LaBrotGUEST
It's almost always related to like pre-analytics or some other factor in the lab.
15 MINS LATER

Daniel GriffinGUEST
And you're going to see this number and then ask yourself, boy, in the last week, have I had a sore throat? Have I had a runny nose? Have I fought anything off? Probably can come up with the explanation yourself right there.