Gates donates: maleria research
p2pnet.net OT News:- The OneWorld Health drug company is now $42.6 better off, thanks to a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Described as the first nonprofit pharmaceutical firm in the US, the Institute for OneWorld Health will work with the University of California, Berkeley, and Amyris Biotechnologies.
“UC Berkeley will conduct research to perfect a microbial factory for the compound artemisinin, currently the most effective treatment for malaria, and Amyris, a new biotech company founded on the breakthroughs in synthetic biology pioneered at UC Berkeley, will develop the process for industrial fermentation and commercialization,” says a statement..
“OneWorld Health will perform the drug development and regulatory work to demonstrate the bioequivalence of microbially-produced artemisinin derivative to the drug’s natural form.”
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See:-
better off – $42.6 Million Gates Grant Funds 3-Way Malaria Collaboration, OneWorld Health, December 13, 2004
December 13th, 2004 at 10:47 pm
When you’re getting on in age and much of the world sees you as a money hungry
devil, it’s time to reinvent your image. This is his attempt to be seen as a profit and a saviour.
I expect Bill will be doing a few more good deeds to change his image and the fickle perception of history. He must have finally realised that he has enough money to get by.
Although this is a good turn, I hope people have enough presence of mind to remember his nature before this bout of philanthropy.
December 13th, 2004 at 11:16 pm
Largest philanthropic trust in the United States
Gates’ philanthropy is hardly a ’bout’ intended to offset public opinion, and is certainly not new.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has donated billions of dollars over the years to aid in vaccination in third-world countries, domestic library grants, scholarship funds and much more. In 1999 alone, they gave $750 million to fund vaccination of children in developing countries.
As much as he is hated by some, people would do well to learn a bit about how much he is giving back in proportion to other industry giants – I have yet to see a Larry Ellison Foundation for the Blind.
“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was formally established in the summer of 1999. The new organization consolidated previous activities dating back to 1994, including family giving, the William H. Gates Foundation, the Microsoft Corporation’s “Libraries Online” initiative, the Gates Library Foundation and later Gates Learning Foundation. With an endowment estimated at more than $22 billion in early 2000, it ranked as the largest philanthropic trust in the United States. Its contribution strategy focuses on global health and population control programs, libraries and access to information technology, education reform and minority scholarships, and a wide range of Pacific Northwest institutions and programs.”
December 13th, 2004 at 11:20 pm
More on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
History:
http://tinyurl.com/5nkxe
Foundation Website:
http://www.gatesfoundation.org
December 13th, 2004 at 11:21 pm
who is larry ellison anyhow?
December 14th, 2004 at 12:55 am
“maleria”? Try “malaria”!
December 14th, 2004 at 1:20 am
Having traveled and lived extensively in malaria areas of the world, I know first hand of the huge number of annual deaths from malaria. Most aid goes to mosquiteo control and little to eliminating the disease. Skip a year or two of control – as in the Cook Islands – and the area is right back at the begining. Maybe the Gates’ donation might, just might wipe malaria from the earth.
The traveling Pilgrim
December 14th, 2004 at 1:21 am
That’s just the point, isn’t it!
December 14th, 2004 at 1:30 am
Does it make a difference to you why Degas sketched the ballerina, why a doctor saved a life, why a firefighter ran INTO a burning building? Then why do you care why Gates gives money to charity? Just be gratefull. And what have you done today for humanity?
December 14th, 2004 at 4:44 am
I have boycotted RIAA/MPAA and Microsoft.
December 14th, 2004 at 1:46 pm
I posted this for two reasons: p2pnet is always on Microsoft’s case and it’s nice to know at least some of the money it rakes in goes towards helping people; and, I have malaria. I got in West Africa and although it doesn’t bother me too much these days, I still vividly remember the conditions under which I contracted it. If some of the Gates’ money – albeit a tiny amount, relatively speaking – can go towards finding a cure or alleviating the condition, that’s good in my book.
Cheers!
December 14th, 2004 at 5:35 pm
good for the gates
December 16th, 2004 at 1:58 pm
I am a FLOSS http://www.flora.ca/floss.shtml consultant and I was previously a supplier for Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada. Then the Gates foundation gave them a large donation, and they felt obligated to switch their infrastructure to Microsoft (which I do not offer services for). How much left the organization to Gaves vs. how much came back was never really calculated, it was considered a “morally correct thing to do”. The fact that the “software manufacturing” industry that Microsoft clearly the most successful in represents the anti-choice movement in software didn’t matter.
If you look at where they donate, it is primarily in the patented pharmaceutical and bio-technology research sectors. Outside of Microsoft much of Gates personal investments is in other sectors dominated by excessive exclusive rights in the form of patents. This may be a donation, but it is a donation that promotes a personal cause and if successful will result in greater personal gain for Gates.
Is any of this funded “research” going to be patent-free (file prior-art only, do not patent)? Is any of the other research results going to be released Open Access like what the National Institute of Health in the United States is moving towards? Many governments are looking quite closely at having government funded research be Open Access or put directly into the Public Domain (meaning, no exclusive rights at all).
The more “research” Gates funds, the less of the results of this research is going to be openly available to the public.
I know I’m going to get accused of conspiracy theories here, but I see little evidence that these donations are out of the goodness of his heart. He has something personally to gain by the methods being used and promoted. When you factor in his claimed personal wealth, it is like most of us giving $20 per year to some charity which really isn’t much.
Russell McOrmond http://www.flora.ca/russell/
December 16th, 2004 at 2:10 pm
This will wipe out malaria in the same way that the various AIDS drugs are saving lives in Africa. In other words, it won’t.
In fact we have had many special sessions at various international organizations to try to get the pharmaceutical companies to reduce the patent royalties they demand. We are contemplating special amendments to WIPO and TRIPS to make further exceptions to allow countries to import drugs from other countries capable of producing them.
Privatized health research may help cure diseases of the rich portion of our planet, but it doesn’t really help the vast majority. If we as a society are to solve these problems worldwide we need to radically change health research funding from government protected exclusive rights (patents, etc) to increased front-end government funding of the research that would then be released Open Access to the world.
Expect to see continued lobbying efforts from Gates and the companies he controls against FLOSS, Open Access, and any other movement to move away from privatization that benefits the North/West to infrastructure and methodologies more supportive of the global public good.
Brazil to break Aids drug patents
Brazil says it intends to break patents on commercial anti-Aids drugs as part of its battle against the disease.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4059147.stm
General links to more information…
http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/
Russell McOrmond http://www.flora.ca/russell/