The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) was created in 1996 out of the recognition that the best long-term solution to the growing AIDS epidemic is a vaccine. As a global organization operating across borders to meet the challenges posed by the epidemic, IAVI is working to ensure the development of safe, effective, accessible and preventive HIV vaccines for use throughout the world. IAVI´s work focuses on four areas:

•mobilizing support through advocacy and education (by identifying and filling other scientific gaps);

•accelerating scientific progress (by supporting promising vaccine development partnerships);

•encouraging industrial participation in AIDS vaccine development (by expanding public-private collaboration and creating incentives for private sector investment and participation in HIV vaccine development); and

•assuring global access (by creating the policies necessary for getting the vaccines to all those who need it).

IAVI collaborates with developing countries, governments and international agencies that are dedicated to accelerating the development of a vaccine to halt the AIDS epidemic. IAVI is working on HIV/AIDS vaccine projects with Crucell and GlaxoSmithKline, while Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Co. Inc. and Pfizer are IAVI funding partners, as are the Rockefeller Foundation, World Bank, USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors.

In 2005, GlaxoSmithKline launched the first formal public-private partnership with IAVI to research vaccines against HIV strains that circulate predominantly in Africa. IAVI contributes technical expertise and funding, and GSK and IAVI researchers form a joint research team. The partnership is doing preclinical research for a vaccine using a vector derived from an adenovirus common in non-human primates carrying pieces of the HIV genome. Disabled adenoviruses are innocuous and produce a very strong immune response. Previous exposure to naturally occurring adenoviruses may limit the potency of such vaccines, which is why GSK and IAVI are concentrating on adenoviruses that do not occur in humans.

IAVI entered into an agreement with Crucell to develop an HIV vaccine based on Crucell´s AdVac adenovirus vector technology and obtained the rights from Crucell to use a cell line for these vectors. IAVI intends to bring a candidate vaccine based on this technology into human clinical trials in 2007.