Melbourne-based biotech Virax is...funding a clinical trial of its HIV drug entirely from...donations [by] a consortium of mining companies, led by BHP Billiton and including Rio Tinto and three Japanese companies... Virax CEO David Beames said...the South African trial would make it quicker for AIDS sufferers in the region to gain access to the drug...He said it was an innovative way of raising funding for a trial...”that otherwise depends on the largesse of big pharma companies.”