Gates lavishes funding on health partnerships

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation dedicated close to three billion US dollars last year to neglected diseases. Through its Global Health Program the organization addresses diseases that destroy lives and bludgeon economies – predominantly in developing countries – but receive insufficient attention from the pharmaceutical industry.

“When it comes to global health, Bill and I are optimists – but we’re impatient optimists,” says Melinda Gates (watch speech). “The world is getting better, but it’s not getting better for everyone, and it’s not getting better fast enough.”

To fight malaria, the mosquito-spread parasite that each year takes one million lives, swallows up 40 percent of the health budgets in Africa and, according to the World Bank, reduces the African continent’s GDP growth by approximately one full percentage point, the Gates Foundation provides lavish funding to two public-private partnerships that were both set up just ten years ago, following a strong appeal by the World Health Organization.

Medicines for Malaria Venture and the Path Malaria Vaccine Initiative aim for the availability, access and affordability of solutions against the curable and preventable disease.

Medicines for Malaria Venture in Geneva focuses on researching new antimalarial drugs and operates like “a virtual not-for-profit pharmaceutical company” with a portfolio of over 50 new projects and a 100 partners, says Jaya Banerji, head of communication for MMV.

“It’s actually quite remarkable that a small organization like ours manages to do such an enormous amount in research and development,” Banerj adds.

In just ten years, the Geneva-based Swiss foundation has several potential break-through drugs in the pipeline, including Coartem® Dispersible for children, Eurartesim™ and Pyramax®.  But, “Because our vision is a malaria-free world, ideally we hope to disappear, once malaria has been defeated,” she teases.

MMV has just received a 115 million US dollar 5-year follow-up grant from the Gates Foundation and also gets generous funding from the UK government, as well as a dozen other partners. A dynamic fundraising campaign has been launched to further diversify its sources of income.

Malaria Vaccine Initiative, under the umbrella of Seattle-based PATH, a global health nonprofit organization, is working on the development of vaccines. Its vision is also “a world free from malaria”. With headquarters based in Bethesda, Maryland in the US, it houses an important outpost in Ferney Voltaire, close to Geneva Airport.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is by far the biggest donor of Path MVI, followed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the ExxonMobil Foundation. In partnership with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and thanks to renewed Gates funding, Path MVI is completing development of “RTS,S, the world’s most advanced malaria vaccine candidate”.

Partnerships (with governments, other foundations, nonprofits, pharmaceutical companies, and philanthropic partners) "are the key," says Bill Gates in an on-line interview, “so that the rate of progress is far greater than in the past”.

Why then does the Gates Foundation finance two organizations that have the same objective, but do not work in unison? Has the founder of Microsoft turned a new leaf by introducing competition between organizations that are racing to eradicate malaria, Swisster asked the Gates Foundation?

“The Gates Foundation would like to clarify that their rationale for funding both the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiatives (MVI) is not to introduce competition but to approach a very tough problem, the eventual elimination of malaria, with a multi-pronged approach," answered the formidable Weber Shandwick, an international consultancy mandated to protect the Gates Foundation from intrusive journalists.

“The Gates Foundation’s approach on the support of multiple anti-malaria interventions can be summarised as approaching the elimination of malaria from all angles – vaccine development, vector control, drug development, and financing mechanisms.” The Innovative Vector Control Consortium in the UK is also funded by the Gates Foundation.

“Passion is not enough,” indicates Jaya Banerji. “You need the expertise, wherewithal and connections to make a difference. And you have to come across as credible.”

She adds that “product delivery partnerships mean that we work together, but that there is no money in this for anyone.” Generous funding is necessary, although MMV prides itself in cost-effectiveness, with administrative overheads that are remarkably low, at just above ten per cent.

Bill Gates has this vision of the future: “In the coming decades, I think we're going to see two big changes: health will continue to get better – because of progress on malaria, HIV, and immunization – and more countries will become self-sufficient."

"I'm convinced these improvements will mean that, in the next 20 years, the number of people who need our help will be cut in half. That would be a phenomenal payoff. But to get the payoff, we have to keep up the investments we're making today.” (watch speech)