Oct. 9 (UPI) — A $40 million investment announced Monday by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to help supercharge vaccine accessibility for the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Speaking from the 2023 Grand Challenges annual meeting, Bill Gates said the funding will bolster access to mRNA research and vaccine manufacturing technology, ultimately enhancing the ability of lower-income countries to produce life-saving vaccines.
The foundation is allocating $5 million to each of the two vaccine manufacturers based in Africa, with an additional $10 million going to undisclosed companies. The foundation said the remaining $20 million is slated for Belgium-based Quantoom Biosciences to advance its technology and drive down production costs.
“Putting innovative mRNA technology in the hands of researchers and manufacturers in Africa and around the world will help ensure more people benefit from next-generation vaccines,” Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Nigeria’s coordinating minister of health and social welfare, said in a press release.
This fresh injection of funds expands on the foundation’s prior commitment of $55 million in mRNA manufacturing technology, which plays a role in combating a growing number of infectious diseases.
On Oct. 2, the Nobel Prize was awarded to two American scientists for their contributions to the technology used in mRNA vaccines.
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman pioneered a method to prevent mRNA from triggering an inflammatory response. Their work played a pivotal role in the development of mRNA vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their breakthrough paved the way for a numerous list of diseases for which mRNA vaccines are being developed, including HIV, the Zika virus, herpes, norovirus and numerous others.
In the near future, experts believe mRNA technology could also be used to treat diseases and not just for preventative means.