JP Morgan Chase & Co and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have started The Global Health Investment Fund (GHIF), which will allow individual and institutional investors to finance late-stage global health technologies in low-income countries.
Till now, the fund has received commitments worth $94 million from various investors, including anchor support from Grand Challenges Canada which is funded by the government of Canada, German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation which is a global health investment fund.
This fund will invest in technologies which will help advance interventions to fight challenges related to healthcare such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and maternal and infant mortality.
Further, to mitigate the risk of investing in clinical development of new technologies, the Gates Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency have committed to partially offset potential losses in the fund, which will seek financial returns for investors by targeting high-impact technologies with public health applications in both developed and emerging markets.
"The Global Health Investment Fund brings a diverse group of investors together around the shared objective of developing life-saving technologies in a financially sustainable way,” Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said.
LHGP Asset Management, a London-based asset manager specialising in sustainable development, will be responsible for originating, managing and exiting GHIF portfolio investments.
In addition to the anchor supporters, the fund's investor group include organisations such as the International Finance Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, The Pfizer Foundation, Storebrand and JPMorgan Chase, in addition to qualified individuals and family offices.
"We invest in global health because we know that when health improves, life improves by every measure," said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The GHIF will invest in new drugs and vaccines, emerging diagnostic tools, child-friendly formulations of existing products, expanding manufacturing capacity and other applications that will help bring affordable technologies to those most in need.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
