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BIO has launched a bold new organization to work with companies, donors and investors to bring new vaccines, therapies, diagnostics and delivery tools to market in developing nations. The organization—BIO Ventures for Global Health (BVGH)—received start-up funding in 2004 from the Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller foundations.
BVGH is unique among publicprivate partnerships because it is rooted in BIO and it speaks the language of industry.With access to BIO’s full range of tools, resources and networks, BVGH can provide companies with real strategies to develop products for underserved markets. BVGH’s approach is market-based and premised on the belief that economic mechanisms are a critical driver for broad industry involvement.
Market, funding and information barriers have long restricted biotechnology investment in diseases that primarily affect populations outside of North America and Europe. BVGH is working with companies and foundations to uncover and build market opportunities for the most promising new technologies to fight some of the world’s most devastating and neglected diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, and cholera.
As an initial step, BVGH is creating business cases for specific developing world products. These cases will assess and build market opportunities, identify gaps in the current system for market entry, and map the clinical, regulatory and distribution pathways necessary to bring a product to market. BVGH will demonstrate to companies the strongest cases for investment and highlight to donors the need for increasing market opportunities through means such as advance purchase commitments. BVGH has also been building support for new marketbased incentives that encourage greater industry investment in global health R&D, while recognizing industry’s responsibility to shareholders.
In June 2004, BVGH published its initial newsletter, BVGH Report, and launched its Web site (www.bvgh.org), both of which will serve as resources for innovators, investors and public-private partnerships working on global health product development.
The idea for BVGH grew out of discussions with companies and foundations following the Partnering for Global Health meeting in late 2002, hosted by BIO and the Gates Foundation. According to Richard Klausner, executive director for the Gates Foundation’s Global Health program, “There’s great untapped potential for the biotech sector’s incredible R&D engine to develop new health solutions for the developing world.We believe that BIO Ventures for Global Health can play an important role in bringing more biotechnology companies into the global health field.”
For information on BVGH, visit www.bvgh.org or call 202-312-9260.
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