Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announce US$550 million funding to advance a TB vaccine candidate, M72/AS01E, through a Phase III clinical trial that could be the first in 100 years if proven effective.

Gates Foundation’s ‘Goalkeepers’ report highlights global health, development successes, challenges, warns cuts to donor funding threaten progress

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is now inviting applications to Grand Challenges Explorations, which has awarded over 1070 grants in over 58 countries to date.

“To fight many of the diseases that plague the world’s poorest, we need tools — safe and effective drugs and vaccines that can reduce unnecessary suffering and afford millions the opportunity to lead healthy and productive lives. An essential part of having the right tools, and making sure that the right patients are getting and using them in the right way, is post-market safety surveillance…,” Trevor Mundel, president of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, writes in the foundation’s “Impatient Optimists” blog. He highlights a Gates Foundation-supported report (.pdf), titled “Strengthening Post-Market Safety Surveillance in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” He concludes, “This report represents innovative thinking in the field and has provided us with a plan for moving forward. Now it is our responsibility to work together on making it a reality” (2/17).