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Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

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Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#31

Post by naveenspark »

ig1 wrote: post #23

Given the high cost (hundreds of millions) of taking a vaccine through clinical trials, FDA approval and production I'm curious why the choice to go the non-profit route. Is the growth plan to raise the money from large donors (Gates foundation, Wellcome Trust, etc.) or to licence the technology to more traditional pharma firms ?

Further answer: Yes the plan is to raise funds from all possible sources over time. We are open to talking to traditional pharma firms as well but we aim to keep the vaccine free to the end consumer.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#32

Post by edent »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #6

I don't get it, isn't the point of investing to get the investment back in many multiples? How do you get your investment back if it's a non-profit?

I assume it's a tax dodge of some sort. I'm sure that investments in non-profits can be offset against capital gains (or something like that).

I'm not an investor and this isn't tax advice!

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#33

Post by maxerickson »

edent wrote: post #32
FooBarWidget wrote: post #6

I don't get it, isn't the point of investing to get the investment back in many multiples? How do you get your investment back if it's a non-profit?

I assume it's a tax dodge of some sort. I'm sure that investments in non-profits can be offset against capital gains (or something like that). I'm not an investor and this isn't tax advice!

Why do people think this?

Charitable donations do often result in reduced taxes. The catch is that the reduction in taxes is less than the donation (and at least in the U.S., there is no combination of State and Federal taxes that is greater than 100% of income...).

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#34

Post by naveenspark »

anu_gupta wrote: post #26

I'd like to understand why organisations like the Gates Foundation / NIH aren't excited by this approach? I'm assuming they've rejected this, which would explain the need to crowdfinance the next part. If they haven't rejected it, why aren't they being approached for grants? Also, where's the science? Having something in the FAQ that states "We're awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal" is, to be blunt, pret…

We are pursuing all major funders we know of for funding for our work (including Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation etc.). The challenge is that it takes significant time to prepare grants apps, and go through the process. Some large funders such as EJAF only accept grant applications once a year. HIV/AIDS is an urgent challenge. Therefore we are crowd funding these dollars now to move our project forward immediately. In terms of the PRJ question, the bottom line is its a chicken and egg problem. Its harder to get published if you release all of the data prior to publication. Post publication, our goal is to make our project as open access as humanely possible. All of that being said, we do have more information about our work on our site: http://www.immunityproject.org. If you have specific questions about our approach please feel free to ask them.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#35

Post by ajessup »

kyro wrote: post #30
naveenspark wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi all, this is Naveen from Immunity Project YC team. The fact that we are using ML to identify epitopes that are the preferred targets on the virus for HIV controllers is key to what makes our project unique. This is a newer approach for developing a vaccine and therefore makes it "rogue."

This sounds pretty fascinating. Do you have any links/resources that dives more in depth into this approach?

This talk at GitHub makes good watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8syV5t2_3QI&feature=youtu.be

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#36

Post by crystaln »

I'm trying to understand what if any overlap a pharmaceutical nonprofit has with any value YC could add, from the scale of funds required, to product advice, to business model - everything seems entirely out of the range of YC's expertise.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#37

Post by gus_massa »

anu_gupta wrote: post #26

I'd like to understand why organisations like the Gates Foundation / NIH aren't excited by this approach? I'm assuming they've rejected this, which would explain the need to crowdfinance the next part. If they haven't rejected it, why aren't they being approached for grants? Also, where's the science? Having something in the FAQ that states "We're awaiting publication in a peer-reviewed journal" is, to be blunt, pret…

In some areas it’s usual to publish the preprints, for example in the arXiv: http://arxiv.org/ “Open access to 909,134 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics”

In some other areas, the journals have more strictly policies, and don’t like preprints, reprints, free author pdf copies, ...

I’d really like to see a peer-review article, even if that means waiting to see the research data. There is a lot of bullshit inside per-review articles, but there is even more bullshit outside per-review articles. A per-review is not a guaranty that the article is correct, but at least it guaranty that some expert in that area had read the article and had no found any major fault.

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#38

Post by ujsfdo »

playhard wrote: post #3
pg wrote: post #2

Lest anyone be confused by that headline, there are 6 other nonprofits in the current batch. So there is a 7-way tie for 2nd nonprofit.

Making the world better, one batch at a time!

Sorry, you're still not getting into YC14

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#39

Post by darklegend »

crystaln wrote: post #36

I'm trying to understand what if any overlap a pharmaceutical nonprofit has with any value YC could add, from the scale of funds required, to product advice, to business model - everything seems entirely out of the range of YC's expertise.

Just had the same thoughts... They try to get crowdfunding - so this is maybe just a kind of good PR ;-) [Edit] Just to make it clear: Nothing against the project itself. Any chance of getting a HIV vaccine should be used!

Re: Startup developing HIV/AIDS vaccine is 2nd nonprofit accepted into Y Combinator

#40

Post by opendomain »

icinnamon wrote: post #10
humanfromearth wrote: post #5

So have they developed a vaccine, but they need money for trials, delivery..? How exactly would they go about and test if it works on humans? Are there people who volunteer to get infected with HIV?

I'm Ian Cinnamon, one of the members of the Immunity Project YC team. We have in fact developed the vaccine. We've completed 2 years of animal testing, and we have one final experiment to run before we start our Phase I Clinical Trials in humans. In order to test the efficacy of the vaccine in human trials, we go to Durban, South Africa, where HIV has a prevalence rate of ~15%. We dose a wide range of healthy volunte…

Ian- YOU developed the vaccine for HIV? Were you part of some team from a university? Or did some other company develop the real science and you are partnering with them? How can you offer everyone in the world a free vaccine for your crowdfunding target of only $500K? where does the money you raise go?
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