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Comment by icinnamon | Hacker News Reader

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 volunteers, and we check back again at regular intervals to make sure they have no contracted HIV. We're also able to perform a wide range of laboratory tests to show the dosed human blood is now immune to HIV.

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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?

Our Immunity Project Science team, led by Dr. Reid Rubsamen, developed the vaccine. The $500K pays for our final experiment before we begin our Phase I Clinical Trials. We've already conducted over a decade of research and two years of pre-clinical trials with overwhelming success.

If you look at the fundraising page they have a budget but it looks like the $500k just pays for the next experiment it wont even get them to Phase 1. Microsoft Research gave them $1M to get this far.

I did some more research and would really like a clarifcation of this project.

First of all - Flow Pharma is the inventor of the vsaccine - they are a FOR PROFIT angel backed company. Why do they need crowdfunding?

Second - How does Immunity project work? It seems that the real non-profit is "Until there is a cure". So you are donating money to them, which then give the money to the immunity project which pays for a trial of an unproven drug for a FOR prfit company.

This is a fantastic project and I promise I will donate if you have full disclosure. thank you for doing this.

More then happy to give you the full details on how we've set this up: the vaccine is being developed by Flow Pharma Inc. Instead of setting up our own 501(c)3, we setup a fiscal sponsorship agreement with Until There's A Cure, a leading HIV/AIDS focused 501(c)3. We are operating the project as a non profit even though our entity type is technically a corp. In other words we are obligated to follow 501(c)3 rules and regulations, and we are obligated to give our vaccine away for free regardless of our entity type. The primary reason we did this is because its much better to work with a well established 501(c)3 that has team members who can help provide validation and support then to start from scratch on your own. It is also much faster to do this then setup your own 501(c)3.

Thank you very much for your response! Unfortunately, I do not think you actually answered my questions!

* Why does Flow Pharma need crowdfunding when they are FOR PROFIT? * How can you guarantee FREE vaccines for everyone for only $500k? * What will the crowd founding be spent on and will there be follow on investing needed? * What is the future of Immunity Project? Have you begun your application to be your own official non-profit?

EDIT: I seem that someone else answered a part "Dr. Reid Rubsamen, developed the vaccine is part of the Immunity Project", but does not explain the exact relationship with Flow Pharma?

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