Meet ViiV, Pfizer and GSK's HIV Venture

Ed Silverman at "The Pink Sheet" Daily is reporting that GSK and Pfizer will formally announce tomorrow some details about their new(ish) HIV joint venture. Like, for example, the new name. (Any similarity to your favorite games console or Intel processor is purely coincidental we're sure.)

Meet ViiV Healthcare (eventually that URL will probably work). We've previously written about the JV here on the blog (you can read another full, magazine-length piece here), and our take remains largely the same--of course who knows what they'll say tomorrow to throw us for a loop. But here's some of our previous analysis:

The GSK/Pfizer HIV joint venture is an interesting solution to [pharma's problems of scale and funding a competitive pipeline in niche areas]. The new company is relatively small (first year projected sales: $2.4 billion); it’s got its own managers; it makes its own R&D decisions. The research stays within the parent companies and the JV pays its expenses – but if the pipeline projects don’t work out, and the JV doesn’t like what GSK and Pfizer are producing, the JV can buy their research from wherever they want. “It puts pressure and accountability onto the scientists,” GSK’s chief strategy officer David Redfern told us, echoing a favorite theme of GSK’s R&D boss, Moncef Slaoui.

Stay tuned. Maybe ViiV is about to make its first deal? We'll keep you posted.