Gates Ventures, CEPI plan to fund Indian vaccine makers
PremiumOnly 6% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated, highlighting the global disparities in access to covid shots
DIVYA RAJAGOPAL : Gates Ventures, the private equity arm of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and a clutch of other philanthropic organizations are in talks to invest in Indian vaccine makers as they seek to boost global supply, three people aware of the development said.
One of the companies that Gates Ventures is in talks with is Pune-based Gennova, which is developing India’s first mRNA vaccine, the people said, requesting anonymity. Gennova is expected to seek emergency approval for its vaccine candidate from India’s drug regulator by the end of this year, they said.
Gates Foundation and other such organizations are redoubling efforts to reach covid vaccines to countries where access has been hampered by shortages as India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, stopped exports after a devastating second wave. Only 6% of Africa’s population is fully vaccinated, highlighting the global disparities in access to covid shots.
An email sent to Gates Foundation on Tuesday remained unanswered. An external spokesperson for Gennova did not respond to an email.
Gates Ventures has in the past invested in companies such as Aurobindo Pharma and Biological E to support their manufacturing of anti-HIV drugs and scale up vaccine manufacturing. The minimum investment size of Gates Ventures is $5 million, according to the organization’s website. Gates Foundation has also indirectly provided grants to Serum Institute of India (SII).
Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is also in talks with Indian vaccine makers for a possible early-stage investment in covid-19 vaccine candidates, one of the three people said. A spokesperson for CEPI did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The government’s decision to open covid vaccine exports earlier this month has provided relief to vaccine companies in the final stage of clinical trials. Vaccine makers such as Biological E, Gennova and SII are eyeing exports and booster shots for Indians.
Biological E, which is developing a covid vaccine, and Johnson and Johnson have received $50 million from the US government’s Development Finance Corp. (DFC) as part of a Quad initiative for expanding covid-19 vaccine manufacturing for low- and middle-income countries. As part of the agreement, Biological E is expected to manufacture more than 1 billion vaccine doses by the end of 2022.
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Earlier this year, several financial institutions, including Exim Bank and Japanese Bank of International Corp. (JBIC), met with vaccine makers to explore funding strategies to help scale up their manufacturing. In July, Exim and JBIC offered to provide funding up to $300 million to vaccine companies.
Despite the government’s decision to halt vaccine exports earlier this year to focus on its immunization drive, global organizations expect India to play a significant part in supplying to developing countries. Last month, Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientific officer of the World Health Organization, said in an interview that India is expected to send 20 million doses of Covishield to the Covax facility. SII committed to supplying up to 1 billion doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine by the end of 2021. Swaminathan said that beginning January, exports from India may go up.
Cadila Healthcare, which has developed India’s first DNA vaccine, indicated it would start exporting after getting authorization from the WHO or through separate country filings once it has fulfilled its commitments to the government. Currently, Covishield and Covaxin are the only WHO-approved vaccines from India.
At the G20 meeting in Rome last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Indian companies will be ready to manufacture 5 billion doses by the end of 2022. However, India still lags behind China, which has supplied close to 3 billion of its covid vaccines to 50 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America, according to data from healthcare intelligence firm Airfinity.
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