First established as a clinical research organisation during the late 80s, St Stephen’s AIDS Trust (SSAT) was subsequently registered as a research and education charity by 4 founder trustees including the founder chairman Professor Brian Gazzard, in February 1991.
These were very different and extremely challenging times set within the overall context of an alarming rise in the HIV epidemic of the 1980s. The founding clinicians sought to establish a body that, through the application of clinical research, would enable early access to treatment and therapies/interventions that during the early years of the HIV epidemic were in very short supply. Essentially SSAT was created in response to, and in, an environment of crisis.
Over the subsequent years the Charity has evolved into a sustainable research and education organisation built on a partnership with the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – a relationship that was formally recognised in 2004 by a Memorandum of Understanding which has since proved an enduring success for both organisations.