It has had little influence on the direction of the research effort to provide an effective drug or treatment. Pharmaceutical companies were investing their own money and resources, motivated by profit, for protease inhibitors before any activist pressure. The private sector is responsible for the creation, discovery and development of effective treatment. Du Pont, an early investigator dropped out, leaving Roche, Merck, Abbott and Agouron with viable products. Social pressure is responsible for the government regulation of the cost but you can't lower the cost if there is no drug.
Funding does hinge on social pressure.
But unlike the the cancer story, whose etiology is long and pretty much devoid of any kind of truly organized social activism, the AIDS story did result in positive change, however small it might seem in view of the overwhelming hideousness of the whole pharmaceutical business.