Korea will become an integral part of fighting off future pandemics with the nation's accumulated experience from fighting Covid-19, according to Trevor Mundel, president of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and chair of the RIGHT (Research Investment for Global Health Technology) Fund Council.

"We are living in an extraordinary time and under extraordinary circumstances," Mundel said at the 'Healthcare Innovation 2020' forum on Thursday. "While many of us have been working for years to help prepare the world for a once-in-a-century pandemic, few of us could have anticipated a year ago that that pandemic would happen so soon."

Mundel noted that Covid-19 has since transformed how the people live and work together.

He stressed that if anything, Covid-19 has strengthened confidence in the power of global cooperation – across the public and private sectors – to accelerate innovation and to leverage that innovation toward the fight for global health equity.

"As Covid-19 was a novel pathogen, it meant that all of us across the government and industry were forced to start from square one," Mundel said. "We had to identify the underlying virus, sequence its genome, define its pathological effects and transmission dynamics, and launch research to develop novel diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics."

Because time was of the essence and millions of lives hung in the balance, everyone had to start product development with the end in mind, Mundel added.

Mundel further noted that as there was a global consensus that no one will be safe from Covid-19 until everyone is safe, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the RIGHT Fund made affordability and equitable access an essential element of product design.

"We still have much to do to ensure global access," Mundel said. "Vaccines aren't truly affordable or equitable if they must be stored at extremely low temperatures or administered in multiple doses, so we must work together to solve those technical challenges."

Mundel stressed the need for funding needed to deliver new vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to those who need them most.

"While $3 billion in funding for delivery has been raised, that is just a down payment on the estimated $38 billion required," Mundel said. "But what we have achieved together in just 11 months makes me confident that we can overcome any obstacle."

To this end, Mundel stressed that the RIGHT Fund and its Korean partners have played an integral part in accelerating the development of a vaccine for Covid-19 and made great progress in making vaccines therapeutics and diagnostics for other infectious diseases as well.

"As a founding member of the RIGHT Fund, the foundation is impressed with the fund's progress after just two years of operations," Mundel said. "The fund has built a portfolio of 22 projects across vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, which illustrates the core strengths of Korea's pharmaceutical and health technology industries."

Moreover, the Fund has proven to be an invaluable platform for accessing Korean companies at a time when Korea is a world leader in responding to Covid-19, he added.

As examples, he cited the funds helping connect KT with the Gates Foundation, which subsequently funded KT's pandemic response project and its partnership with SK Bioscience in developing a vaccine for Covid-19.

"Also, in response to the pandemic, the RIGHT Fund created a new Technical Accelerator Award this spring which directly funded Covid-19 proof of concept projects,” he said. “RIGHT Fund's accomplishments over the past two years, coupled with the potential contributions of Korea's industry to global health, underscore the power of partnership with Korean scientists and industry at a critical time.”

Looking ahead, Mundel stressed that he believes collaborations with Korean partners will become more important, as the recent partnership with local firms has shown amazing potential in Korea's diagnostics and digital health technologies.

"For example, with half the population of sub-Saharan Africa expected to subscribe to mobile services by 2025, there is a significant opportunity to leverage Korean digital health tools in low- and middle-income countries to improve primary healthcare delivery and infectious disease control," Mundel said. "The Gates Foundation, the Korean government and partner companies are currently exploring how we can further capitalize on Korea's strengths for the broader benefit of global health."

Therefore, both the RIGHT Fund and Gates foundation are looking forward to continuing existing and building new collaborations with Korean partners to develop and deliver innovative health technologies and interventions for patients most in need, he added.