Pursuits
Gates Gets Surprise $87 Million From Neglected-Disease Stake
- Investment in Anacor’s boron-based drugs yields windfall
- Atypical funding approach aimed at private-sector research
Bill Gates.
Photographer: Scott Eells/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation received an unexpected boost to its coffers when a stake in a small biotechnology firm, made in 2013 to encourage the company’s work on neglected diseases, sold for $86.7 million -- about 17 times the fund’s original investment.
The windfall from the $5 million stake in Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc., disclosed Wednesday in a filing, highlights an atypical funding approach that the Gates Foundation, the world’s largest private philanthropy, sometimes uses to spark private-sector research on conditions that mainly afflict poor people and countries, a major focus for the charity.