Intarcia Therapeutics, a Boston-based biotech that’s developing a tiny, implantable drug-delivery pump for type 2 diabetes, is broadening its focus to HIV as a result of $140 million in grant and equity funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Intarcia device.About $90 million of the money is being used to develop an HIV version of the pump. The other $50 million is part of a larger funding round.

The pump, implanted just below the skin, works by releasing a drug into a patient’s body over time, overcoming the problems that some patients have complying with a schedule of injections.

In November 2016, Intarcia submitted a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking approval for a type 2 diabetes drug, which would be administered by this pump, known as ITCA 650.

The device is designed to hold as much as 12 months of drug supply would need to be filled by a clinician once or twice a year. Now Intarcia wants to use that pump technology to deliver anti-HIV prophylactic therapy for HIV.