International AIDS Vaccine Initiative

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A public-private partnership dedicated to producing a preventive vaccine against HIV infection, suitable for use in the most affected developing countries. To date, no such vaccine exists but scientific consensus suggests that its development is feasible.

Founded in 1996, IAVI is the first and largest of a number of similar product development public-private partnerships aimed at producing pharmaceutical products to tackle major public health challenges. It applies industrial-style R&D approaches and partners with commercial companies, but is funded by government and private donors (including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) instead of shareholders. IAVI's activities include direct R&D, advocacy about the need for and potential public health impact of a vaccine against HIV, and grass-roots community work to prepare for the practical introduction of such a vaccine.

The work of IAVI and other product development public-private partnerships has been endorsed by the G8, which in July 2005 agreed that:

17. The core aims for education and health are stated in the UN Millennium Declaration. We support our African partners' commitment to ensure that by 2015 all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality, and have access to basic health care (free wherever countries choose to provide this) to reduce mortality among those most at risk from dying from preventable causes, particularly women and children; and so that the spread of HIV, malaria and other killer diseases is halted and reversed and people have access to safe water and sanitation.

18. We will work to achieve these aims by: ... (e) Building on the valuable G8 Global HIV/AIDS vaccine enterprise, increasing direct investment and taking forward work on market incentives, as a complement to basic research, through such mechanisms as Public Private Partnerships and Advance Purchase Commitments to encourage the development of vaccines, microbicides and drugs for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other neglected diseases. We note continuing work to explore establishing an International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology centre in Africa to help research into vaccines for the diseases that are afflicting the continent.

IAVI is a founding member of the Global AIDS Vaccine Enterprise, which is an alliance of independent organisations involved in HIV vaccine research and development.

IAVI has offices in New York, Amsterdam, Brussels, New Delhi, and Nairobi.

See IAVI.