Financial Times
http://www.ft.com
Accessed 30 June 2012

Gates Foundation in venture capital shift
By Andrew Jack in London
Financial Times | 26 June 2012
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17bec15e-bfa8-11e1-bb88-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1zJ5dm9g

Extract
The Gates Foundation plans to take equity stakes in up to a dozen biotech companies this year, signalling a shift towards a “venture capital” approach at the world’s biggest philanthropic organisation. Trevor Mundel, the foundation’s recently appointed head of global health, told the Financial Times he hoped to oversee a series of investments in companies each likely to be worth several million dollars. The move – still on a small financial scale given the foundation’s endowment of $37bn – marks a further move away from its traditional approach of grant-giving and towards a more business-oriented way to support the development of treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases affecting the world’s poor….