Who runs faster?
Every two minutes, a child below the age of five dies from Malaria
the EU Malaria Fund
The EU Malaria Fund is a public-private partnership between the European Union, International Organizations, corporations, and organized civic society, providing a novel funding instrument to address market failures in infectious diseases with significant relevance to public health globally. It has been initiated by kENUP Foundation, The Fund was inaugurated during a public ceremony held online on June 3, 2020.
The EU Malaria Fund aims to
- Support the control, and potentially eradication, of malaria;
- Provide venture loans at preferential terms to incorporated, scientifically promising projects not yet pursued by the pharmaceutical industry, thus helping to extend the deal-flow in the domain of tropical diseases;
- Fund platform projects allowing for secondary exploitations of their anti-malaria assets, for example into COVID-19;
- Work with a thoroughly considered portfolio of pre-selected companies, thus ensuring its ability to fund Malaria R&D right away;
- Serve as a “case-in-point” for the set up of similar funding instruments to address other pressing medical needs with underlying market failures comparable to those in malaria (for example: AMR).
the need
"Progress in the global malaria response has unquestionably stalled. Clearly, to get the response back on track, increased funding is urgently needed from international donors and endemic countries. Critical gaps in access to tools that prevent, diagnose and treat malaria must be found and filled."
Dr. Pedro Alonso, Director, WHO Global Malaria Programme, December 2017 bulletin
the problem
"There is a market failure around the development of interventions against diseases primarily affecting the Global South: high risk in product development is associated with little potential profit. So, once a project leaves academia, companies are usually not investing"
Holm Keller, Executive Chairman, kENUP Foundation, Supplement to The Guardian , April 25, 2019