The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) was awarded two new grants totaling about $60 million to speed up the development of an AIDS vaccine and other biomedical HIV prevention tools.

The grants provide funding for more than three and half years and are awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, according to an IAVI press release.

“Accelerating the translation of innovative research into promising vaccine candidates for clinical testing is a real urgency. With more than 2 million people becoming infected with HIV in 2015 alone there is no time to lose. Collaborative and efficient AIDS vaccine development today means more lives saved in the future,” said Mark Feinberg, president and CEO of IAVI, in the press release. “We are very pleased to expand the provision of vaccine product development expertise to support Gates Foundation-sponsored AIDS vaccine programs. The Gates Foundation has been a long-standing partner in this critical work of IAVI.”

Working through the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD), IAVI will provide services such as pre-clinical development and data analysis that will expedite the development of about 12 promising vaccine candidates with the hopes of reaching clinical testing sooner.

For more about IAVI, read the June 2016 POZ interview with Feinberg titled “Positive Ends: The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (AVI) marks 20 years in the search for an end to the epidemic.”