The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with Wellcome and Mastercard are leading the $125 million COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. Designed to pool global resources and expertise in the fight against the deadly pandemic, the accelerator is working in tandem with the World Health Organization, national governments, business sectors and organisations to deliver end-to-end results, ‘from drug pipeline development through manufacturing and scale-up’; with a focus on minimising the ‘financial and technical risk for academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies, while also ensuring that these products are accessible and affordable to people in low-resource settings’.
“Viruses like COVID-19 spread rapidly, but the development of vaccines and treatments to stop them moves slowly,” said Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “If we want to make the world safe from outbreaks like COVID-19, particularly for those most vulnerable, then we need to find a way to make research and development move faster. That requires governments, private enterprise, and philanthropic organizations to act quickly to fund R&D.”
Time pressures mean the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will take a different path than typical funding calls. For more on funding opportunities, and ways to invest, email: epidemics@wellcome.ac.uk
“This virus is an unprecedented global threat, and one for which we must propel international partnerships to develop treatments, rapid diagnostics, and vaccines,” added Dr Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome. “Science is moving at a phenomenal pace against COVID-19, but to get ahead of this epidemic we need greater investment and to ensure research co-ordination. The Therapeutics Accelerator will allow us to do this for potential treatments with support for research, development, assessment, and manufacturing. COVID-19 is an extremely challenging virus, but we’ve proved that through collaborating across borders we can tackle emerging infectious diseases. We must strive to strengthen efforts in the face of COVID-19, and in doing so, continue to make sure advances are accessible and affordable to all. Investing now, at scale, at risk and as a collective global effort is vital if we are to change the course of this epidemic. We welcome others to join us in this effort.”
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