Gates Donates $6 Billion to Research Effort
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Source: http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/unwire.cfm#5
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates will donate an additional $6
billion to fund research into developing new vaccines for dis-
eases that disproportionately affect the developing world, the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced.
Targeting malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, the Gates Founda-
tion also wants to lower the costs of any newly developed vac-
cines. This approach includes the establishment a trust fund
that would guarantee drug purchases and enable pharmaceutical
companies to increase their research investments. "You're going
to see Bill and Melinda Gates being catalysts for the rapid de-
velopment and deployment of vaccines that save lives," said
Patty Stonesifer, co-chair of the foundation.
Gates has already provided some $175 million in grants toward
vaccines this year, and "is eager to do much more," the Wall
Street Journal reports. Under tax laws, the Gates Foundation is
required to disburse 5% of its endowment every years, which
translates into about $850 million in grants for 1999.
The foundation recently convened a meeting between officials of
the World Bank, the UN Development Program, the World Health
Organization (WHO) and public health experts, according to
Gordon Perkin of the Program for Appropriate Technology in
Health. Perkin wants to establish a Children's Vaccine Trust
"to provide funds to purchase vaccines for poor countries."
Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs also attended the
meeting, where he touted a "Millennium Vaccine Fund of as much
as $3 billion to guarantee a market for vaccines that haven't
yet been developed."
According to the Wall Street Journal, vaccine research appeals
to Gates "because of the parallels to the software industry.
... Vaccines, like software programs, require huge initial in-
vestments, but once developed are relatively inexpensive to
produce in high volumes." Perkin: "If you've got your private
market established to cover your research and development, and
you have assurance someone is going to buy the vaccines, you
can go to scale very quickly" (David Bank, Wall Street Journal,
23 Aug).
Gates's $6 billion donation will allow him to surpass the de-
scendents of John D. Rockefeller as the largest charitable do-
nors of the 20th century. To date, Gates has set aside $17 bil-
lion for his charitable foundation (Financial Times, 23 Aug).
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