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Business leaders urged to cover global funding shortfall for coronavirus R&D within a month
The private sector is being urged to donate $8 billion by the end of April for the global research response to Covid-19. Health research charity The Wellcome Trust has appealed to business leaders to join a coalition dubbed ‘Covid-Zero’ to overcome the research funding shortfall for tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, said in a press release that science was “the only exit strategy—but we do not have the funding we need to execute it”.
“We want business leaders to give a small proportion of the money they are dedicating to coping with this crisis, to solving it. We hope that governments will follow their example,” Farrar said.
An $8bn shortfall was identified in March by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board—a body convened by the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization—and includes $6bn thought to be needed for R&D, manufacture and delivery of vaccines, drugs and tests for Covid-19. The remaining $2bn is required for global public health efforts, according to the board.
To date, $1.4bn has been committed to WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator for the global R&D response. But Richard Hatchett, chief executive of CEPI which is coordinating global vaccine efforts, warned in March that without immediate additional funding they would not be able to get potential vaccines into human trials.