Gates Awards $5.4M to New Biotech Venture

PHILADELPHIA — The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Tuesday that it had awarded $5.4 million to a new biotechnology venture fund created by the industry’s chief lobbyist and trade association.

The four-year grant will be used by the nonprofit BIO Ventures for Global Health to encourage biotechnology companies to develop drugs for diseases now neglected by them because of disinterest and uncertainty about doing business in the Third World.

BIO Ventures was launched by the Biotechnology Industry Organization last year with funding from the Gates and Rockefeller foundations.

"The biotech industry has tremendous potential for developing new therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics against diseases of the developing world," said Dr. Richard Klausner, executive director of the Gates Foundation’s global health program. "For too long, funding, market, and information barriers have prevented biotech companies from realizing this potential."

The venture fund plans to use the money to gather information for the industry on market demand, regulatory issues and distribution networks in developing nations. Fund officials said biotechnology companies are deterred by these issues and haven’t even begun to gather the basic data on whether to develop drugs for developing nations. The fund will initially focus on developing marketing data for a tuberculosis vaccine.

"This grant represents a historic shift in thinking about how to engage the biopharma sector in addressing the unmet health needs of people in developing countries," said Rob Chess, chairman of the BIO Ventures Fund.

The Gates grant was announced at the trade association’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, where 18,000 biotechnology executives are gathered this week.