Since its establishment in 1989, the Centre for AIDS Reagents (CFAR) has been providing HIV/AIDS research scientists and others working in this field with a broad range of specialised reagents, many of which are not available elsewhere.

CFAR was set up and funded by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the European Union (EU) through Programme EVA (European Vaccine Against AIDS) and is currently receiving support from the European HIV Enterprise Consortium (Europrise), the FP7 Next Generation HIV-1 Immunogens Inducing Broadly Reactive Neutralising Antibodies (NGIN) integrated project and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Global HIV Vaccine Research Cryorepository (GHRC) which is part of the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD).

CFAR is a designated WHO-UNAIDS Collaborating Centre and houses an extensive collection of HIV primary isolates obtained through the WHO-UNAIDS Virus Network.

CFAR is housed at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), a centre of the Health Protection Agency (HPA).