The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced today four novel public-private partnerships to accelerate development of promising HIV/AIDS vaccines for use around the world. The new partnerships, called HIV Vaccine Design and Development Teams (HVDDT), tap the different skills and talents of private industry and academic research centers, and provide incentive to move strong HIV/AIDS vaccine candidates out of the laboratory and into human testing. NIAID has committed to spend approximately $70 million over the next five years on the four HVDDT contracts that have been awarded.
The HVDDT program responds directly to President Clinton's call to increase public-private cooperation in developing vaccines against globally important diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
"Many vaccines in use today resulted from both government-sponsored and private research," explains Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID. "The HVDDT program is a unique addition to this model that encourages the private sector to increase their AIDS vaccine efforts while allowing NIAID to work closely with its partners throughout the development process."
Designing and testing vaccines for diseases like AIDS is an expensive and scientifically complex undertaking with no guarantees of success and little likelihood of significant profit. "The HVDDT program encourages pharmaceutical companies to invest more in AIDS vaccine research by partially offsetting their financial risk. In essence, HVDDT contracts 'prime the pump' to get the vaccine-production engine running, including vaccine candidates for HIV subtypes that circulate in developing countries," explains Peggy Johnston, Ph.D., assistant director for AIDS vaccines at NIAID.
HVDDT awards are incentive-based contracts aimed at vaccine candidates in the middle of the development pipeline -- those not yet in clinical testing. Applicants were required to describe a clear development pla
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Contact: Sam Perdue
sp189u@nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
26-Jun-2000