Dive Brief:
- GlaxoSmithKline will contribute $20 million over five years for a research partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focused exclusively on finding a cure for HIV and AIDS.
- The New York Times reports that the collaboration includes a new research institute and a company, Qura Therapeutics, through which any discoveries can be marketed.
- Researchers will focus on a method that first wakes up dormant cells infected by the virus and then targets treatments to attack them, but no one expects success in the very near future, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
This partnership is not the first between a university and a pharmaceutical company. As the New York Times reports, Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania are collaborating on a research center to focus on innovative cancer treatment. The $20 million GlaxoSmithKline has committed for the first five years is a relatively small sum. And with researchers expecting any major developments to take longer than that, the question will be whether the new center can attract other donors to keep it going if GlaxoSmithKline doesn’t continue its support.