Gates Foundation Billions Change Pharma Landscape
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By Ben Hirschler
The billions of dollars thrown at global health problems by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are changing the game in drug discovery, posing big challenges to the world’s top drugmakers, according to a report on Tuesday.
Pharmaceutical information group IMS Health Inc. said the emergence of megabuck philanthropy was both a threat and a collaboration opportunity for manufacturers.
“Pharma companies need to develop an explicit strategy to deal with this phenomenon,” IMS said in its annual Intelligence.360 report on factors shaping the industry.
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The power of the Gates Foundation was bolstered last year when Warren Buffett signed over much of his fortune to the organization, uniting the world’s two richest people in a bid to fight disease, reduce poverty and improve education.
The move will roughly double the foundation’s size to $60 billion, giving it plentiful resources to compete in the medical research arena with both government-funded institutions and commercial pharmaceutical firms.
As a result, even if drug companies succeed in making key discoveries first, they may still find it attractive to partner with the Gates Foundations, from a practical and public relations point of view, IMS believes.
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