Charities launch initiative to bolster response to COVID-19 epidemic

File photo provided by Bill Melinda Gates Foundation shows that Bill Gates (R) and Melinda Gates pose for a photo after annotating the 2019 annual letter in Kirkland, Washington, the United States, on Jan. 8, 2019. (Xinhua)

The Bill Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard on Tuesday committed up to 125 million U.S. dollars in seed funding to speed up the response to the COVID-19 epidemic by identifying, assessing, developing and scaling up treatments. The initiative made by the institutions said that the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will play a catalytic role by accelerating and evaluating new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients with COVID-19 in the immediate term, and other viral pathogens in the longer-term. The accelerator will work with the World Health Organization, government and private sector funders and organizations, as well as the global regulatory and policy-setting institutions.

"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. "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 RD."

A three-pronged approach to identifying candidate compounds was introduced in the statement: testing approved drugs for activity against COVID-19, screening libraries of thousands of compounds with confirmed safety data, and considering new investigational compounds and monoclonal antibodies.

"COVID-19 is an extremely challenging virus, but... through collaborating across borders we can tackle emerging infectious diseases," said Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome.

According to the statement, the Gates Foundation and Wellcome are each contributing 50 million U.S. dollars, and the Mastercard Impact Fund has committed 25 million dollars to catalyze the initial work of the accelerator. The Gates Foundation's funding is part of its 100-million-dollar commitment to the COVID-19 response announced last month.