mRNA is sort of a surprise star of the pandemic: Bill Gates

New Delhi: “It is likely to be a respiratory virus, with all the human travel we now have, that’s the one that can spread in such a rapid way,” says Bill Gates, Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on the next big potential crisis. Teasing his new book, he mentions that it will focus on the learnings from the pandemic and the significance of funding the private sector and academia to build better diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines,”

Recently at the 19th edition of BioAsia, Bill Gates underscored the research agenda of Gates Foundation with its Indian partners. He also spoke on using the new platforms like the mRNA and building up the capacity in India as a reserve for future pandemics.

Microsoft Co-founder emphasizes that there is a need for the world to spend more on R&D, and infectious disease. “Infectious disease is quite modest when compared to cancer or a heart or neurological disease, and yet this pandemic is a reminder that we have to do a better job on those too. The opportunities for the innovators are all over in India and should be seen as an opportunity to improve all of our health.”

“mRNA is sort of a surprise star of the pandemic. We had vaccines made by many different techniques – the viral vector and protein subunit. But mRNA was not available for manufacturing outside of the US and Europe. The Foundation has already started working with our partners in the Indian ecosystem so that those partners have this mRNA capacity. We are thinking whether gene therapy can be used for things like sickle cell disease or HIV. We have to get the cost to come down by almost a factor of hundred from what it is today.”

“The beauty of the Indian ecosystem is that it not only goes after innovation, but also goes after the cost issues – that’s the way to redesign things and retain the miraculous capabilities of gene therapy and yet make it available to everyone in the world. We are thrilled to have partners in India who share that vision,” Gates.