GSK Creates New Startup to Find Cure for HIV

​GlaxosmithKline (GSK) and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) announced a new partnership aimed at finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.

The partnership will be split into two different divisions. An HIV Cure Center will be built on UNC’s campus to house scientists studying HIV whereas a new startup called Qura Therapeutics will form to handle all of the business-related duties including commercialization, manufacturing, etc.

Both parties will work together to study the latest approaches to curing the virus including the “shock and kill” method, according to GSK’s press release.

Dr. David Margolis, the leader of this effort and a professor of medicine at UNC said in a statement, “The ‘shock and kill’ approach has shown significant promise in early translational research on humans and has been the focus of research for the last several years,” adding new research approaches need to be installed because the medical community has spent 30 years managing HIV/AIDS without discovering a cure.

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The New York Times reports that this collaboration continues a recent trend of prominent colleges teaming up with pharmaceutical companies to create cures for various maladies.

One example is Novartis and the University of Pennsylvania working together to genetically alter a patient’s immune cells to see how well they can combat various forms of cancer.

Although the Times mentions this project has yield some surprising remissions in cancer patients, a designated cure for eradicating HIV could take a much longer time because the virus “hides in a dormant state in certain cells of the body and can spring back to life if a patient stops taking antiviral drugs.”

Still, GSK CEO Andrew Witty seems optimistic about this plan saying, “This partnership is a testament to our past and present leadership, innovation and commitment to this field. We are inspired by the confidence that with the right resources and research teams, we will be able to make a meaningful impact towards a cure for HIV.”

GSK will spend a total of $20 million over the next five years to fund this endeavor.