The Gates Foundation to fund $9m to a firm working on HIV cure

The Gates Foundation of Bill and Melinda Gates awarded $9m to Kymab, Cambridge life sciences firm, to support its research and development of new vaccines and infectious disease prevention therapies. Kymab has been working with the Gates Foundation and its partners since 2014 on programs in diseases such as malaria, HIV, and Typhoid. The grant funding will ensure the firm can continue using its Kymouse antibody platform to produce human antibodies to develop vaccines for infectious diseases including HIV.

The Gates Foundation will have the rights to develop and distribute these products to low-income countries and Kymab will retain rights to commercialize the products in developed countries.

“It was always clear to me that the Kymouse was a valuable tool in the fight against infectious disease and this was also recognized very early by the Gates Foundation. Over the last two years we have worked with the Foundation to realize this ambition and their increased support is a fantastic recognition of Kymab’s continuing effort in testing vaccine candidates for infectious disease prevention and developing therapeutic antibodies for treatment”, Professor Allan Bradley, Chief Technology Officer of Kymab, said.