The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a five-year, $50 million grant to renew its collaboration with the municipal government of Beijing and Tsinghua University in support of the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute (GHDDI).

Established in 2016 as China’s first public-private partnership on innovative research, GHDDI aims to improve health outcomes worldwide by developing life-saving therapies for infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, which disproportionately affect the world’s poorest people—including women, children, people living with HIV/AIDS, and other vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries. The Gates Foundation’s investment, which will be matched by the Beijing municipal government, will bolster GHDDI’s drug discovery capacity. Tsinghua University will continue to contribute by building and sharing research platforms, translating research discovery, and developing talent.

Since 2016, GHDDI has built a research center and established a global drug discovery network, and its preclinical pipeline contains more than 10 projects. They include a preclinical antimalarial candidate developed in collaboration with Medicines for Malaria Venture and Malaria Drug Accelerator that has demonstrated promising potential in reducing drug resistance, minimizing dosage, and preventing malaria.

“What really excites me is the potential cumulative impact of all the cutting-edge global health R&D happening at institutions around the world,” Gates Foundation co-founder Bill Gates said in a speech he made at the institute. “The more a global community of innovators can focus on the biggest challenges the world faces, the more people can thrive.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Pony Wang)