Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is teaming up with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in an attempt to find a cure for AIDS.

The two will form a new company called Qura Therapeutics and will launch an “HIV Cure Center” in Chapel Hill. GSK is committing $20 million over the next five years to fund the project.

Chancellor Carol Folt called the effort “a novel approach toward finding a cure” that is a logical move for UNC-Chapel Hill.

“Carolina scientists have been on the forefront of HIV/AIDS research,” Folt said. “The people doing the work said this is what was needed.”

GSK Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty said the idea for the partnership came from those inside his company already working to find a cure. He said he wanted to give them the freedom to explore it.

“It’s hard enough thinking about developing a cure for HIV without saying you have to do it within the following constraints,” Witty said.

In addition to the financial support, the company will have five people staffing the HIV Cure Center. The university will provide the lab space and its own researchers for the venture.

“I am extremely excited,” said Lynda Bell, associate director of UNC-Chapel Hills infectious disease clinic, adding that she hasn’t felt this hopeful about eradicating AIDS since anti-retroviral drug cocktails were introduced two decades ago to fight the disease.

According to AMFAR, a foundation for AIDS research, more than 35 million people worldwide now live with HIV, including 3.2 million under age 15. Every day, more than 5,700 people contract HIV, or nearly 240 every hour, and close to 39 million have died of AIDS-related causes since the disease first surfaced.

GSK said the new venture would be “separate” from its HIV efforts at ViiV Healthcare, which is co-owned with Pfizer and Shionogi, a Japanese firm. Just last week, Witty decided that GSK would not spin off ViiV.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Witty said the decision to retain ownership of ViiV and the UNC joint venture reflect GSK’s commitment to the HIV fight.

“HIV is a very major part of this company,” he told the newspaper. “We’re going to be very ambitious to try to make a big difference.”

Two ViiV drugs have shown great promise, leading to his decision to keep the unit, Witty said.

“ViiV has significant clinical expertise and will play an advisory role to the HIV Cure center and Qura Therapeutics,” the company said in a statement.

Qura is to deal with what GSK and UNC described as the “business side of the partnership,” such as intellectual property, commercialization and governance. The joint venture also will seek “additional partners and public funding.” Scientists will be recruited “from around the world.”

GSK and UNC noted that the new venture would include a research approach toward an HIV cure, sometimes called “shock and kill.” This approach seeks to reveal the hidden virus that persists in people with HIV infection despite successful drug therapy and augment the patient’s immune system to clear these last traces of the virus and infected cells.

“The new approach is not targeting the virus. It’s targeting the affected cells,” said Zhi Hong, GSK senior vice president and head of the Infectious Diseases Therapy Area Unit.

“That’s the most advanced idea for HIV cure that there really is at this point,” added Dr. David Margolis, a professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology, and epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Medicine.

UNC researchers demonstrated in 2012 that latent HIV might be unmasked by new therapies. Recently, researchers at the university received Food and Drug Administration approval for a study in HIV-positive volunteers to combine shock and kill and an immune-boosting strategy.

Witty cautioned that a cure is likely still years away.

“We are not going to find a cure for HIV by Friday. This is going to take a long time,” he said.

Carl Bruton, who has lived with HIV since 1987, said he hopes to see a cure in the next five to 10 years.

“I still plan to be here for it when it gets here,” Bruton said.

The joint venture is a boost for GSK in the Triangle, where the company is in the process of cutting some 900 jobs as part of a restructuring plan instigated by Witty. Only a few days ago, Philip Hampton, the new chair of GSK’s board and former chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, stated public support for Witty and his efforts.

GSK employs several thousand people in the Triangle both in research, consumer health and production of various drugs.