The European Commission has identified combating the major poverty-linked diseases (such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis) as a priority area for funding under their Sixth Framework Programme. EMPRO represents a major new collaborative effort within Europe to gather together a critical mass of experts to address the problem of HIV in the developing world by designing and investigating novel microbicides.

The EMPRO consortium brings together experts from a number of fields to ensure that the project has great depth and breadth in its approach and therefore the greatest chance of success in developing new therapies.