In a near million-dollar agreement, an Atlanta-based biopharmaceutical company purchased the licensing rights to anti-HIV compounds from the University and promised to fund future related research at the University.

Inhibitex, Inc. announced Tuesday it owns the license for a group of anti-HIV compounds developed by University scientists, according to a news release.

Kim Rosenthal, assistant to the CEO of Inhibitex, Inc., said the up-front license fee paid to the University Research Foundation included $750,000 and 226,000 shares of Inhibitex stock in a phone interview Wednesday.

The company plans to pay royalties if the compounds progress through clinical trials and reach the market she said.

The project is in pre-clinical stages.

The possible anti-HIV drug was researched in the laboratory of Vasu Nair, director of the University’s Center for Drug Discovery and head of the department of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences.

The anti-HIV compounds – integrase inhibitors – block insertion of viral DNA into genomes on a host cell according to the press release.

The drug is considered treatment, not prevention, Rosenthal said.

“This is a technology developed in Georgia and licensed by a local company,” said Sohail Malik, director of technology commercialization for the University, in a phone interview Wednesday.

“It’s great. Everything is staying in Georgia,” Rosenthal said.

She said Inhibitex, Inc. has the right to market the compounds later on, Inhibitex also agreed to fund clinical stage research performed at the University related to the licensed compounds for the next three years.

Malik said the licensing agreement is an example of the opportunities available in life sciences research at the University.

“We want the recognition for university people to know that the University is working on the cutting edge research,” Malik said,

“Everything is all Georgia-based, let’s hope it goes through all the next stages.”