Research and Development | Advocacy | Sustaining Political Support

North America has an abundance of the financial and scientific resources required for AIDS vaccine development, and the governments of both Canada and the United States have long championed the effort. Today, the two countries account for 62% of the global funding for AIDS vaccine research and development. Indeed, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the US Agency for International Development provide a substantial part of the financial support  IAVI receives for such work, as well as technical guidance on scientific and policy issues. Their funds have supported both our AIDS vaccine research and the development of scientific and technical capacity of research centers in developing countries that partner with IAVI.

IAVI works in collaboration with academic, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and government institutions in North America to design, develop and clinically evaluate candidate vaccines against HIV. We also work closely with other civil society organizations to develop and assess policies conducive to such efforts, and to advocate for the field at both a national and international level.

IAVI’s global headquarters is located in New York City. The U.S. is also home to two laboratories that are central to our efforts to solve major scientific and technical problems hindering AIDS vaccine development. These labs are:

• The AIDS Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory: Located in Brooklyn, New York, it is the only laboratory exclusively dedicated to the design and development of AIDS vaccines. The AIDS Vaccine Design and Development Laboratory in Brooklyn runs three research programs that are tightly integrated into the operations of three research consortia overseen by IAVI
  
• The IAVI Neutralizing Antibody Center at the Scripps Research Institute: Established in 2008, the center is the world’s first institution dedicated to solving what is perhaps the most pressing problem in the field of AIDS vaccine research: eliciting broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs), that is, antibodies that neutralize a broad range of HIV types. Its researchers apply what they learn about the mechanisms of HIV neutralization from broadly neutralizing antibodies to develop novel prototype AIDS vaccines 

We have strategic research alliances with several other U.S. centers of expertise in HIV and AIDS-related research. Such partnerships are a vital element of IAVI’s efforts to solve some of the most complex problems of AIDS vaccine design and development.
 

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

IAVI’s scientific team in North America, drawn from leading vaccine biotechnology companies and academic institutions, designs and develops AIDS vaccine candidates and conducts vaccine trials and HIV-related clinical research in partnership with research centers and companies around the world.

IAVI also oversees three international research consortia. They are:  

• The Neutralizing Antibody Consortium (NAC): A collaborative, international effort involving leading HIV research labs, biotech companies and clinical research centers from around the world to address one of the fundamental hurdles in HIV vaccine design: the elicitation of antibodies capable of neutralizing a wide variety of HIV strains.
• The Vectors Consortium (VEC):  A similar effort that seeks to develop safe vectors that retain the ability to replicate in the human body.  
• The Live Attenuated Consortium (LAC): This consortium approaches this issue by studying the immunology of non-human primates that have been effectively immunized with weakened simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), a close relative of HIV.

Scientists at IAVI headquarters, the Design Lab and the Neutralizing Antibody Center manage and participate directly in these consortia and provide scientific leadership to the collective effort.

We continue to evaluate AIDS vaccines candidates in clinical trials on the continent, most recently in a Phase I trial launched in collaboration with the University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, NY, a leading institution in vaccine research. We are also providing support to an AIDS vaccine trial—conducted by the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York—in  the candidate vaccine is injected with the application of mild electric fields to enhance its delivery.

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ADVOCACY

IAVI’s global advocacy program promotes awareness among political, financial, and scientific leaders about the urgent need for an AIDS vaccine and cultivates their support for the international effort to develop one.

Through its advocacy program, IAVI has worked closely with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada to develop the Canadian HIV Vaccines Plan. A comprehensive plan that outlines how the country can support the development and delivery of AIDS vaccines, it is the first of its kind written for a high-income nation.

We have partnered with several other Canadian organizations, including the Canadian AIDS Society (CAS) and the Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD) and the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO), which is based in Canada. Together, we work to mobilize support within Canada and around the world for key policy issues affecting AIDS vaccine development. This includes building strategic alliances with researchers and the AIDS community in Canada, keeping government officials and media professionals informed, developing community-level capacity vaccine preparedness and trials, and otherwise advocating for AIDS vaccines.

In the U.S., we develop and analyze policies that influence AIDS vaccine research and development in the hope of speeding the approval, manufacture and deployment of future vaccines against HIV.

We also collaborate with other organizations to promote U.S. government policies that encourage innovative financing—not only for AIDS vaccine design and development, but for solutions to the other persistent and devastating health problems of developing countries as well. We are active members of several advocacy groups, including: 

• Global Health Technologies Coalition: This group, based in Washington, D.C., promotes U.S. government policies supportive of the development of new health products for low- and middle-income countries. We contribute particularly to the development of novel financing mechanisms and incentives for innovation 
   
• AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC): We collaborate with AVAC, which is based in New York City, on a variety of policy analyses and advocacy efforts. For example, we work with the HIV Vaccines and Microbicides Resource Tracking Working Group to monitor and analyze investments in the design and development of vaccines, microbicides and other HIV prevention tools and technologies. We have also worked together to advocate for the expansion of existing incentive schemes supported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to include products addressing the HIV pandemic
   
• International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM): Based in Silver Spring, Maryland, IPM collaborates with us on a number of advocacy efforts, including a briefing last year at the United Nations, as well as joint events at key conferences

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SUSTAINING POLITICAL SUPPORT

Historically, political leaders in the U.S. and Canada have been very influential supporters of AIDS vaccine development. Their assistance has been instrumental in helping IAVI establish a network of sophisticated research centers in Africa and India in partnership with local institutions.

IAVI and its partners routinely meet with Canadian MPs and members of the U.S. Congress to engage policymakers in the AIDS vaccine effort and collect their feedback and guidance on a variety of issues. In the U.S., for example, IAVI is an active member of the Global Health Council, and actively participates in its Global AIDS Roundtable.  Members of this coalition reach out to members of the U.S. Congress and other policymakers to advocate for greater support for the U.S. global AIDS program and the better utilization of existing resources.

We champion the elements of foreign policy that stress building capacity for scientific research in developing nations as an integral part of foreign aid.  IAVI believes that research partnerships of this sort will have a lasting positive influence on the economic future of those nations.