GSK Takes Aim at AIDS/HIV Cure, Funding Company With University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

GSK will fund the protect with $20 million. The funding will be $4 million per year for 5 years, according to the press release from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The website AIDS.gov from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicates that HIV is the world’s leading infectious killer. World Health Organization data showed that an estimated 39 million people have died since the first cases were reported in 1981 and 1.5 million people died of AIDS-related causes in 2013.

GSK and the university have announced the creation of the dedicated HIV Cure center, as well as a jointly owned new company named Qura Therapeutics that will focus on discovering a cure for HIV/AIDS. This Cure center will be located on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and will focus exclusively on finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.

The press release said:

UNC-Chapel Hill and GSK will focus on the latest scientific approaches to curing HIV, including a leading research approach toward an HIV cure, sometimes called “shock and kill.” This approach seeks to reveal the hidden virus that persists in people with HIV infection despite successful drug therapy, and augment the patient’s immune system to clear these last traces of the virus and infected cells. Part of this new paradigm was first tested at UNC-Chapel Hill and in 2012 a team led by UNC-Chapel Hill researchers demonstrated that latent HIV might be unmasked by new therapies. Recently, researchers at the university received Food and Drug Administration approval for a study in HIV-positive volunteers to combine this technique and an immune-boosting strategy.

On top of funding the initial HIV Cure center research plan, GSK will also send a small research team that will move to Chapel Hill to be co-located with UNC researchers. GSK further said that its investment in the HIV Cure center is separate from its investment in the discovery of novel antiretroviral therapies in support of ViiV Healthcare — a global specialist HIV company owned by GSK, Pfizer and Shionogi.

Most people think of drug companies acting on their own, but it has been the case for years that many cures and discoveries have been aided by or in partnerships with universities.

Patients with HIV are now living longer than ever. Still, a cure for HIV/AIDS would be something very new.