Gilead and Grstone have agreed to a $785 million partnership to treat AIDS

Gilead Sciences and Gridstone Oncology have announced a partnership, selection and licensing agreement to develop a vaccine-based immunotherapy that can cure AIDS.
under the terms of the deal, Gilead will pay Grytstone $30 million in cash and $30 million in equity investments.
gilead will be responsible for the first phase of the HIV vaccine trial and will have an exclusive license to develop and commercialize it after the first phase.
Will receive an additional $725 million in regulatory and business milestone payments, as well as tiered royalties for net sales.
Despite significant advances in HIV treatment over the past three decades, people living with HIV still face the dilemma of requiring lifelong treatment," said Diana Brainard, senior vice president of virology therapy at Gilead.
cure AIDS remains the ultimate aspiration of Gilead's AIDS research and development work.
the biopharmaceutical industry does not easily use the term cure, especially in the area of AIDS.
combination of antiviral drugs can effectively treat and control the disease, but there is no clinical cure for AIDS.
the partnership, Gilead will take advantage of Grstone's proprietary vaccine-free platform.
Gritstone has developed immunotherapy for a wide range of cancers and infectious diseases.
Gritstone has two key technologies, a proprietary machine learning platform, Gridstone EDGE, that predicts antigens that exist on the surface of cells, such as tumor cells or infected cells, and the second key technology is Gritstone's ability to use these antigens to develop and manufacture effective immunotherapy.
Brainard added: "Gritstone's vaccine technology has the potential to use SAM and adenovirus vectors to specifically identify and destroy HIV-infected cells in the immune system of people living with HIV.
Willstone will work with Gilead's other partnerships and in-house product programs to drive Gilead's ongoing innovation to find ways to treat the disease and end the epidemic.
technical details of the partnership have not been made public, but for now it is likely that antigens derived from the Grittenstone ape immunodeficiency virus (SIV) will be used.
January 20, Gritstone signed a licensing agreement with Genevant Sciences for the development of a new SAM corona pneumonia vaccine for SARS-CoV-2.
this collaboration will combine the clinically proven Genevant LNP platform with Grstone's cancer immunotherapy based on SAM's new antigen, which is currently being trialed in Phase II.
will also use the Grystone vaccine technology, which combines adenovirus vectors with self-amplified messenger RNA to target HIV-specific "antigens" or target proteins being developed.
In addition, Gilead is developing the long-acting HIV-1 shell inhibitor Lenacapavir (GS-6207), the latest data from Clinical Research Phase 1 show that patients are expected to have treatment concentrations for at least six months after a single 900 mg dose.