Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome join Mastercard for $125 mn drug fund

New York: Medical research foundations Wellcome and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joined forces with payments major Mastercard on Tuesday to set up $125 million in seed funding to speed-up the response to the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) epidemic by identifying, assessing, developing and scaling-up treatments.

The Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, as the three partners call it, aims to play a catalytic role by accelerating and evaluating new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients with coronavirus in the immediate term, and other viral pathogens in the longer term.

Currently, there are no broad-spectrum antivirals or immunotherapies available for the fight against emerging pathogens, and none approved for use on Covid-19.

The Gates Foundation and Wellcome said they are each contributing up to $50 million, and the Mastercard Impact Fund has committed up to $25 million to catalyze the initial work of the accelerator.

The Gates Foundation’s funding is part of its up to $100 million commitment to the Covid-19 response announced last month. (IANS)

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