CONRAD receives $28.5
million Gates Foundation grant for HIV prevention research
Grant to be used for
continued microbicide research and development
November 30, 2007
ARLINGTON, VA—The
CONRAD Program of Eastern Virginia
Medical School today announced that it has received a $28.5 million
grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop microbicides
for HIV prevention. To date, the Gates Foundation has awarded a total of
$65 million to CONRAD for microbicide research.
The award will support the development
of new combination microbicides, research on novel and improved in-vitro
and small-animal models to test microbicide safety and efficacy,
validation of clinical biomarkers and testing of the new microbicide
candidates for clinical safety.
“Despite setbacks in the HIV prevention
field over the past year, the global effort to develop effective new
prevention tools, including microbicides, must go on,” said Henry
Gabelnick, Executive Director of CONRAD. “We are grateful for the
continued support of the Gates Foundation, and we are inspired by its
commitment to making real progress in global health.”
Microbicides are topical substances
used intravaginally to potentially prevent HIV infection. Effective
microbicides could be an important HIV prevention option for women, who
account for approximately half of all people living with HIV globally.
CONRAD has served as a resource for the
microbicide field for the past twenty years, and, in that capacity, has
provided support for preclinical and early clinical research and Phase
III clinical trials for several microbicide candidates, many of which
were funded by the Gates Foundation and/or the U.S. Agency for
International Development (USAID). New microbicide candidates CONRAD is
currently researching contain several ingredients with different types
of activity against HIV. Dr. Gabelnick continued, “Due to the multiple
pathways involved in mucosal infection and the number of new infections
attributable to viruses that contain drug resistance-associated
mutations, development of a combination microbicide is likely to be
important to achieve successful prevention of sexual transmission of
HIV.”
“The microbicide field has accumulated
a wealth of experience and understanding that is critical for
accelerating progress toward an effective microbicide,” said Dr. Gustavo
Doncel, Director of Preclinical Research at CONRAD. “The contributions
of the Gates Foundation have created a synergy within the microbicide
field that we hope will result in the development of a tool that will be
a major advance in the fight against HIV.”
Even if the first microbicide that is
approved is not 100% effective, modeling studies suggest that it could
still have a major impact on public health, provided it is used in
combination with other HIV prevention methods.
CONRAD is a cooperating agency of USAID
committed to improving reproductive health by expanding the
contraceptive choices of women and men and by helping to prevent the
transmission of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. CONRAD
is a division of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Eastern
Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA, where it has laboratories and a
clinical research center. The main office is located in Arlington, VA
with additional offices in Atlanta, GA, and West Chester, PA.
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