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Comment by jaggederest | Hacker News Reader

3bn is, one assumed, being used as leverage rather than a primary mover.

If you have matching donations or can kickstart an otherwise self-sustaining process, the end-to-end cost doesn't have to add up to 3bn to be feasible with a 3bn pool of initial capital.

Think of it as venture research.

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> If you have matching donations or can kickstart an otherwise self-sustaining process

They won't have been the first people funding research to have thought of this... it's a criteria sometimes used in evaluating in NIH grants, for instance.

> Think of it as venture research

As opposed to?

As opposed to more standard research funding which isn't as goal oriented.

I assume they're looking for a "billion dollar exit" from their research funding.

Overemphasis on commercialization is a common complaint of the current funding situation in medical research, so I don't think we're failing for lack of interest in commercial exits. In fact, many scientist are serial entrepreneurs.

Moreover, many discoveries that went on to make a lot of people a lot of money had no obvious commercial application when they were first being researched... Predicting future markets is hard.

No I don't mean "made money", that would just be standard venture capital.

I mean "achieves their targets by reducing the total burden of disease on humanity", which is a different radical exit.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean by "achieves their targets by reducing the total burden of disease on humanity". Or maybe I just don't understand the difference between this as merely "achieves their targets by selling useful treatments to people"?

Could to elaborate?

A malaria vaccine would make no commercial sense but would be a huge reduction in the total burden of disease. That's what I mean.

Baldness receives a disproportionate amount of funding when compared to serious diseases. Why? If it's cured someone is going to make a whole ton of money. A quick Google to back up my claim yielded this article[1]. $2bn/y on hair loss, $1bn on HIV, $547m/y on malaria. Contrary to my point I do find the HIV funding interesting: further funding for HIV and an HIV vaccine (as mentioned in the article) is a dreadful route for making money. Just think of all the money that could have been made from a life-long smallpox treatment had we not eradicated it.

I'm not saying that I support that line of thinking, there's just a fair amount of evidence suggesting that this is how funding is allocated in practice.

Throwing down $3bn to "cure disease" is very different from throwing down $3bn to "cure things that are easily taken to market." I'm not sure if Zuckerberg and Chan are taking the former more philanthropic route, but all diseases do not currently receive the same amount of monetary attention.

[1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bill-gates-...

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