International AIDS Vaccine Initiative - Activities

Activities

IAVI’s scientific team, drawn largely from private industry, researches and develops AIDS vaccine candidates and engages in clinical trials and research through partnerships with more than 50 academic, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and governmental institutions. A major portion of the organization’s activities occur in developing countries, where 95 percent of new HIV infections occur. IAVI sponsors AIDS vaccine trials in collaboration with local scientists primarily in Africa, where subtypes of HIV different from that common in other regions of the world circulate.

The organization also has provided resources to translational research to fill roles traditionally played by the biotechnology or biopharmaceutical companies. IAVI conducts translational research at its AIDS Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory in New York City, its Neutralizing Antibody Center at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and its Human Immunology Laboratory at Imperial College London in London, England. It also has entered into a partnership with the Government of India on an HIV Vaccine Design Program. IAVI and its network of partners have partners have developed and advanced 13 HIV vaccine candidates into early-stage human trials, including the first HIV vaccine trials conducted in Germany, India, Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia.

IAVI publishes a range of materials on topics related to AIDS vaccine development. In July 2010, the organization published "Progress on the path toward an AIDS vaccine," which examines recent progress in HIV vaccine development. The bimonthly IAVI Report and VAX track the latest news in vaccine development and related topics, and offer an online database of all AIDS vaccine trials, also available through IAVI’s website.

The organization also documents policy-related topics, including vaccine research and development expenditures, incentives to increase industry participation in vaccine discovery, and potential health and economic impacts of a vaccine. IAVI has focused on communicating the need for an AIDS vaccine in recent years at the G8 forum, the United Nations General Assembly meetings on AIDS, the UN Millennium Development Goals, and regional and global AIDS conferences.