Scientific collaboration saving millions of lives around the world is set to continue
The ongoing cooperation between IOCB Prague and the American pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences builds on a glorious history which gave the world medicines that are helping millions of people on the planet.
Representatives of Gilead Sciences have visited Prague several times in the past. Their most recent visit this month is part of the Gilead Sciences Research Centre joint research program. This program focuses on addressing urgent or long unmet health-related needs, particularly in the area of viral, inflammatory and oncological diseases.
As pointed out by Tomáš Cihlář, Senior Vice President Research, Virology at Gilead Sciences, during an earlier trip to the Czech capital, the ultimate goals of the joint effort are to end the HIV epidemic, to eliminate viral hepatitis and to improve global preparedness for the next virus pandemic. According to him, strong research alliances are key to achieving these objectives.
The partnership research program of the Gilead Sciences Research Centre stems from the unique cooperation between IOCB Prague and Gilead which took place in the early 1990s. Then, the sprouting pharmaceutical company, which was still very small and unfamiliar at the time, obtained licenses for several compounds discovered by former director of the institute Antonín Holý. Three of them have subsequently led to the development of a number of drugs that are improving the lives of millions of patients with HIV and hepatitis B to this day.
‘Thanks to this cooperation with Gilead Sciences, outstanding scientific ideas conceived at our institute have a greater chance of being translated into medicines that will help many people around the world. After all, we are building on a hugely successful tradition’, adds the director of IOCB Prague Prof. Jan Konvalinka.
The originally five-year program of the Gilead Sciences Research Centre at IOCB Prague started in 2006. Further extensions were granted in 2011, 2016 and, most recently, this year. As part of it, Gilead Sciences has provided financial support exceeding 1 million American dollars annually for research projects carried out at IOCB Prague in the field of human diseases.
During their last visit, colleagues from Gilead gave several lectures that filled the lecture hall of IOCB Prague to the brim. Two of them were organized by the IOCB's Women in Science initiative. The informal part of the program was taken advantage of mainly by the students present at the venue, with whom experts from Gilead Sciences shared their life stories and yarns about the sometimes winding path to success in science.
