ViiV Healthcare, a global specialist HIV company majority owned by GSK, with Pfizer and Shionogi Limited as shareholders, is planning to develop the investigational broadly neutralising antibody (bNAb) N6LS for the treatment and prevention of HIV-1, it was reported on Friday.

This move is a part of an exclusive licensing agreement between GSK and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Broadly neutralising antibodies are antibodies that can recognise and block the entry of different strains of HIV into healthy cells. The product N6LS an antiviral bNAb that works by binding to a specific site (gp120) on the surface of HIV that prevents its entry into uninfected immune system cells (CD4+ T-cells). The company says that by blocking HIV's entry into human CD4+ cells, HIV replication is stopped, and the HIV transmission process is likely to be prevented.

Kimberly Smith, MD, head of Research & Development at ViiV Healthcare, said, 'We are excited to advance N6LS from its current proof of concept stage to the next step in its development by studying this bNAb as a long-acting medicine that could potentially be used for both treatment and prevention of HIV. By continuing to research new ways that people living with HIV can reach undetectable viral loads, we build on our ten-year history of furthering innovative science in HIV and take another important step forward in ending the epidemic.'