HHS https://www.hhs.gov unveiled a new type of public private partnership to enable investments using venture capital practices. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), https://phe.gov/about/barda/pages/defauot.aspx has launched the partnership with the Global Health Investment Corporation (GHIC).
The partnership’s goal is to accelerate development and commercialization of technologies and medical products needed to respond to or prevent public health emergencies such as pandemics and other health security threats.
Through the partnership, BARDA is going to provide GHIC with a minimum of $50 million over five years with potential for up to $500 million over 10 years. GHIC will launch a global health security fund with matching capital from other investors.
This partnership will allow direct linkage with the investment community and establish sustained and long term efforts to identify, nurture, and commercialize technologies to help the U.S to respond effectively to future health security threats.
With BARDA’s Ventures funding, GHIC plans to help companies develop breakthrough technologies. GHIC will collaborate with companies around the world to source promising products with the potential to strengthen health security and generate financial returns.
Since the program was initiated, BARDA has established wide ranging public private partnerships with companies from global pharmaceutical conglomerates to small business startups.
This enabled the founding of an accelerator partnership working to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria, called CARB-X. In 2016, with NIH and the Wellcome Trust, CARB-X managed by Boston University is now the world’s largest public private partnership dedicated to accelerating new countermeasures to combat antimicrobial resistant infections.
The BARDA Ventures partnership with GHIC will be supported through BARDA’s Division of Research Innovation and Ventures (DRIVe). BARDA launched DRIVe in 2018 to focus on potentially breakthrough technologies and capabilities needed to address systemic challenges across all health security threats, such as sensors and AI based technologies.
The focus for DRIVe is to provide early and actionable health information solutions for detecting and preventing sepsis, and to develop alternative vaccine delivery technologies, biologics, and small molecule drug repurposing to combat threats.
BARDA’s DRIVe currently is partnering with 37 companies through federal contracts and operates with a network of 13 accelerators in different regions of the country to better source innovation to support to early stage companies.