The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and Aeras, a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing tuberculosis (TB) vaccines, has announced the transfer to IAVI of Aeras’ TB vaccine clinical research programs and assets, consisting of certain clinical staff, clinical programs, biorepository, funding commitments, and other assets.
(IAVI) is a nonprofit scientific organization whose mission is to develop vaccines and other biomedical innovations that prevent HIV infection. Since its founding in 1996, IAVI has provided scientific, research and development, and policy leadership to address the needs of communities and key populations at risk for HIV infection around the world.
IAVI’s global reach, including its clinical research network in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, has allowed the organization to make fundamental contributions to understanding of the epidemiology, transmission, natural history, virology, and immunology of HIV infection.
This work played a key role in facilitating the structure-based design of promising HIV vaccine candidates as well as the discovery of “broadly neutralizing antibodies” that are now being advanced as promising approaches for HIV prevention.
IAVI’s integrated capabilities in vaccine discovery, development, and clinical research take advantage of biopharmaceutical industry expertise to accelerate the development and testing of novel HIV vaccine candidates.
In addition to its core HIV vaccine effort, IAVI is working to amplify its global health impact by working with partners to address other urgent unmet public health needs – such as vaccines for other infectious diseases – where our existing technologies, assets, and experience can add unique value.
Aeras is a nonprofit organization advancing the development of new TB vaccines, headquartered in Rockville, Maryland (USA), with a clinical development and operations office in Cape Town, South Africa.
“There is extensive overlap among individuals and communities hit hardest by TB and HIV/AIDS; TB is the single biggest killer of people living with HIV, and, in some parts of the world, the HIV pandemic has fueled the spread of TB.”
“The expertise of the Aeras clinical operations team and South African network will enable IAVI to strengthen its clinical development capacity and enhance its ability to address HIV, TB, and other important global health challenges.”
“We are looking forward to working with public and private sector partners to develop new technologies and programs to help control the TB pandemic.” – Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO, IAVI
“We believe that the time is right to join the expertise within Aeras and IAVI to build on the recent findings and accelerate progress toward new, more effective TB vaccines. We believe such progress will also require additional partnerships among like-minded and committed organizations.” – Jacqueline Shea, Ph.D., CEO, Aeras
“Following the first-ever United Nations high-level meeting on TB, it is important to emphasize that a vaccine is necessary to achieve control over TB on a global level.” – Eric Goosby, M.D., U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Tuberculosis and board chair, IAVI
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