The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and GlaxoSmithKline are forming a new partnership aimed at curing AIDS.
The unique public-private collaboration will create the HIV Cure center and a new company, Qura Therapeutics.
Located on the university's campus the center will focus exclusively on finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.
The new company will handle the business side of the partnership, including intellectual property, commercialization, manufacturing and governance.
Together, the HIV Cure center and Qura Therapeutics will serve as a catalyst for additional partners and public funding that will likely be needed to eradicate HIV worldwide.
“After 30 years of developing treatments that successfully manage HIV/AIDS without finding a cure, we need both new research approaches to this difficult medical problem and durable alliances of many partners to sustain the effort that will be needed to reach this goal,” said Dr. David Margolis, Carolina professor of medicine and leader of the Collaboratory of AIDS Researchers for Eradication.
Through the new company, GSK will invest $4 million per year for five years to fund the initial HIV Cure center research plan, and a small research team from GSK will move to Chapel Hill to be co-located with UNC researchers.
The school will provide laboratory space on its medical campus for the HIV Cure center and the new company. GSK will be contributing its expertise and know-how in medicines discovery, development and manufacturing, and UNC-Chapel Hill will bring to the table its research and translational medicine capabilities, talent, as well as access to patients and funding.
