AELIX THERAPEUTICS SL

Their core work

Aelix Therapeutics is a Barcelona-based clinical-stage biotech SME specializing in therapeutic vaccines and immune-based interventions for HIV infection. Their core work focuses on engineering T-cell immunotherapy strategies aimed at achieving a functional cure — training the immune system to control HIV without continuous antiretroviral therapy. Beyond purely therapeutic work, they have expanded into understanding how host factors such as the gut microbiome, immune aging (inflammaging), and systemic inflammation shape HIV-1 susceptibility and disease progression. They combine wet-lab immunology with computational approaches including systems biology and bioinformatics to identify predictive biomarkers and stratify patient populations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In their first H2020 project (HIVACAR, 2017), Aelix focused tightly on personalized therapeutic vaccines — the question was whether immune-based therapies could functionally cure established HIV infection. By 2020, with MISTRAL, their framing shifted upstream: instead of curing infection, the question became who is at risk of acquiring HIV-1 and why, with the gut microbiome and immune aging (inflammaging) as central variables. This shift reflects a maturing understanding that vaccine efficacy is inseparable from host immune context, and that biomarker-driven patient stratification is essential before any intervention can succeed at scale.

Aelix is moving from single-modality vaccine development toward a systems-level understanding of host immunity, suggesting future collaborations in microbiome-immune axis research, precision vaccinology, and inflammaging — areas relevant well beyond HIV.

How they like to work

Aelix has participated in both of their H2020 projects as a consortium partner, never as coordinator — consistent with a focused SME that contributes deep specialist expertise while larger academic or hospital partners lead the consortia. Their 26 unique partners across 9 countries from only 2 projects indicates they join large, multi-site consortia rather than small bilateral arrangements. This profile suggests they are reliable specialist contributors who bring proprietary vaccine technology or immunological expertise to collaborative research frameworks.

Aelix has built a surprisingly broad network for a two-project SME — 26 unique partners across 9 countries, almost certainly reflecting the large pan-European clinical consortia typical of HIV research. Their partnerships are likely concentrated among academic medical centers, virology institutes, and clinical trial networks in Western Europe.

What sets them apart

Aelix Therapeutics occupies a rare position as a clinical-stage, product-focused SME participating in basic and translational research consortia — they bring an actual therapeutic asset (their HIV vaccine platform) into academic collaborations, not just service capacity. This makes them a valuable industry anchor in consortia that need to demonstrate a pathway from research to application. For a consortium builder, Aelix offers both scientific credibility in HIV immunology and the commercial legitimacy of a company with a live clinical pipeline.

Highlights from their portfolio

• MISTRAL
  The largest funded project (€534,979) and the most thematically ambitious — linking gut microbiome composition, immune aging, and HIV-1 risk in a single stratification framework, with systems biology and bioinformatics integrated throughout.
• HIVACAR
  Directly aligned with Aelix's commercial HIV vaccine pipeline, making it one of the few H2020 cases where an SME's product under clinical development is being evaluated within an EU-funded combination therapy trial.