The EU Malaria Fund closed its first call for funds from investors on Wednesday 3 June.
Of the first €70 million raised, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Commission, via the Horizon 2020 research framework programme, will invest €64 million. The rest will be provided by private investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In total, the European institutions are expected to provide support to the tune of €110 million.
Initiated by the kENUP Foundation and now managed by the Investitionsbank Berlin, the fund is an innovative public-private partnership that aims to stimulate risky investments of up to €150 million in projects considered promising.
This European fund could be “the missing instrument for an orchestra to function harmoniously”, said Holm Keller, president of the kENUP foundation, at a launch ceremony organised online.
The first investments will go to two companies: the Italian biotech company AchilleS Vaccines, active in malaria research, and the Austrian company Themis Bioscience GmbH, which has developed a platform for launching therapies against infectious diseases such as chikungunya.
Responsible for 400,000 deaths a year, mainly in Africa, malaria is the world’s deadliest infectious disease. But “progress has reached its limit of what can be achieved with tools and financial resources we have”, considered Pedro Alonso on behalf of the WHO, describing the creation of the European fund as “truly strategic”. And Covid-19 could make things worse.
More info at: https://www.controlmalaria.eu (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)