Striving To Stop HIV

The company, which until recently was known as Viral Genomix, is a lean, three-man operation based in Philadelphia and run by an earnest 36-year-old, J. Joseph Kim. The four-year-old company has 180 patents worldwide, acquired from the labs of the University of Pennsylvania, which revolve around proteins and their key role in regulating cell functions. But it also has a drug now in Phase I and II clinical trials that may finally bar the door to the spread of HIV: an entirely new class of HIV drug that inhibit the protein the deadly virus uses to control cells.