From Research to Resiliency: How Wellcome Trust is Taking on a Pandemic

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Philanthropy has much to be proud of when it comes to fighting deadly diseases, and can point to decades of work to improve treatment and deliver cures. While smaller than government funding sources, the sector offers some distinct advantages, including the potential to act quickly, be patient about investments in long-term goals and take risks that aren’t possible for businesses chasing the bottom line.

Efforts by foundations have contributed to the development of critical medical interventions. The foundation started by a polio-stricken FDR, now known as the March of Dimes, helped fund research that made the disease a distant memory for Americans. The Rockefeller Foundation is largely credited with eradicating hookworm and yellow fever. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $2.9 billion investment in the global fight against malaria can cite a 50% reduction in deaths since 2000. And it’s nearly impossible to separate the progress in the war against HIV/AIDS from the concerted efforts of funders like Gates, the Elton John Foundation, the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative and U.K.-based Wellcome Trust.

Today, philanthropy’s role in solving COVID-19 is playing out in real time, with much of the same cast, and funders have been partnering closely with the global and government agencies that provide the majority of funding in this space. The world’s largest medical research philanthropy, Wellcome Trust, has been a leader in driving collaboration to achieve global outcomes.

“Prior investments in health pay off, both in our specific work on epidemic preparedness and in other health areas, but no single organization can solve the urgent health challenges facing the world today,” says Josie Golding, Wellcome’s epidemics research lead. “Philanthropy, the private sector and governments must work together.”

Here’s how Wellcome is using its resources and influence to tackle humanity’s latest health scourge—and to prepare for the next one by turning research into resiliency.

A mission mandating science 

The Wellcome Trust was founded in 1936 through the legacy of Sir Henry Wellcome, who played a prominent role in creating the modern pharmaceutical industry. In keeping with his will, Wellcome’s company, Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., became the property of the trust and was given the clear mandate to invest its profits in improving health through scientific research and the study of medicine. 

In the mid-1990s, the trust sold the company, resulting in a portfolio that’s currently valued at roughly $30 billion, and distributes more than $1 billion annually. It is the sole philanthropic entity listed among the top 10 health research funders, alongside government outfits like the National Institutes of Health. Pre-COVID data shows $26 billion in annual funding from the NIH, followed by the European Commission at $3.7 billion, and the U.K. Medical Research Council at $1.3 billion. The largest multilateral funder, the World Health Organization, invested $135 million in 2018.

Twenty-first century challenges

Over time, Wellcome has expanded its reach to support discovery research into life, health and well-being, and is taking on the three biggest global health challenges of the 21st century: mental health, climate change and infectious disease. That includes work on the world’s deadliest viruses, like HIV and Ebola. 

The organization has long believed that investing in epidemic preparedness saves lives, time and economies. Wellcome spent more than $55 million laying the groundwork for the world’s response to Ebola, funding the development of diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and social science research. 

In 2015, following an outbreak of Ebola across West Africa, Wellcome joined a global collaboration of NGOs, governments, companies and funders—including leading philanthropies like Gates, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Aliko Dangote Foundation—to fast-track research for potential treatments and vaccines. The collaboration was successful, resulting in a vaccine that stemmed the spread of the disease. 

The success of that model led to the founding of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in 2017, which brought in a full spectrum of partners and helped shape the way epidemics are tackled today.  

Taking on COVID-19 

All of Wellcome’s COVID-19 work is collaborative across sectors, and models how the full engagement of philanthropy, business, academia, government, world health organizations and civil society can elevate science’s role in solving global health challenges. 

As the pandemic spread, Wellcome quickly activated its research networks, committed significant resources to treatment and vaccine research and development, and expanded the capacity to scale and deliver them equitably. Before the WHO declared the novel coronavirus a global pandemic, Wellcome had made two major investments totaling $100 million dollars. 

Early in March, it invested $50 million in CEPI, the global vaccine research and development group it helped found. CEPI had grown since its inception. The original partners—Wellcome, the governments of Norway and India, the World Economic Forum, and Gates—had gone on to attract support from the private sector, foundations and almost a dozen additional governments. 

Accelerating solutions

At the same time, in March, Wellcome partnered with Gates and the Mastercard Impact Fund to spur the development and delivery of coronavirus interventions through a $125 million COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. Gates and Wellcome agreed to seed the initiative with up to $50 million. Mastercard committed to $25 million. Within weeks, the U.K. government came up with an additional $53 million; the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative added another $25 million.  

Before the month was out, the three initial partners announced grants of $20 million each to three institutions: the University of Oxford in the U.K., the University of Washington and La Jolla Institute for Immunology in the United States. 

Their concerted efforts began addressing a deficit of broad-spectrum antivirals. Multi-site clinical trials on repurposing hydroxychloroquine were conducted in Western Washington and New York City through a partnership with New York University’s School of Medicine. The Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medical Research Unit took the lead on a randomized, placebo-controlled prophylaxis study of 40,000 Asians and Europeans. And an almost $2 million investment in the La Jolla Institute established the Coronavirus Immunotherapy Consortium, or CoVIC, a clearinghouse that allows scientists from around the world to work together on evaluating antiviral candidates. 

On the accelerator’s behalf, Wellcome also co-convenes the Therapeutics Partnership of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator with Unitaid. Launched in April by Gates and the presidents of France and the European Commission, the ACT-Accelerator drew together organizations like Gavi, the Global Fund and the World Bank to fast-track the development and production of the most promising treatments and assure equitable access to testing, treatments and vaccines for even the most marginalized communities.  

Calls for action

Also in April, Wellcome launched an initiative called COVID-Zero to mobilize investments from businesses and philanthropies in the global response. Now closed, the campaign raised more than $27 million from 17 donors, including Avast, Goldman Sachs Gives, Nigel Blackwell, General Catalyst, Deerfield Foundation and Atomico. Just over $8 million of that went to CEPI; the nearly $19 million balance was invested in the Therapeutics Accelerator. 

Beyond that, Wellcome called upon the private sector to raise an additional billion. Results to date stand at $600 million. Impressive results, but consider the fact that Wellcome estimates another $35 billion is needed to meet the ambitious ACT-Accelerator goals in the next 12 months, along with $31 billion to advance the twin goals of research and development, and ensuring fair access regardless of the ability to pay.

Wellcome also activated its scientific networks, adopting a policy that allowed all of its current grantees to repurpose support for COVID-19 research. Results included a new genome sequencing consortium to map the spread at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and efforts to screen existing drugs for repurposing. 

And it used its influence to encourage scientists, journals and funders to share research data and findings, in alignment with the principles to which it committed during the 2016 Zika outbreak. 

From research to resiliency

Wellcome’s ability to move from research to resiliency rests on creating collaborative groups that approach solutions from all angles and establishing long-term networks on the ground for immediate legitimacy.

Golding points to CEPI as a good example of what it’s learned from past epidemics. The coalitions it built put the foundation’s work at the forefront of the response, and the results are inarguable. Golding reports that today, CEPI has nine COVID-19 vaccines in its portfolio, eight of which have moved to clinical trials. It’s also raised $1.3 billion to support vaccine research and development, and plans to produce 2 billion doses of safe and effective vaccine by the end of 2021 for global distribution. 

She also characterizes support for scientific networks as “crucial.” Wellcome’s longstanding, large investments in its Africa and Asia Programs and the Sanger Institute enabled researchers to build trust over time within communities and governments, putting in place “on-the-ground research capacity to react to emerging health threats.” 

The same holistic response is needed for future preparedness, Golding says. “We must take heed of the consequences of not having robust and sustainably financed global preparedness plans—both to end this pandemic and to be better equipped to deal with inevitable future crises.”