Bill Gates is funding factories for 7 potential coronavirus vaccines

Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist plans to help fund factories for seven promising vaccines, even before seeing conclusive data. That's despite the fact that two of the programs—at most—will make it through to final development and deployment, he said on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.

“Our early money can accelerate things,” Gates said. The foundation is picking the seven “most promising” vaccine constructs and will help fund factories for all seven, he added, “even though we’ll end up picking at most two” to actually deploy.

“To get to the best case” of vaccine deployment in about 18 months, Gates said, “we need to do safety and efficacy and build manufacturing" simultaneously. He acknowledged the plan will result in the loss of “a few billion dollars” on projects that don’t pan out.

Still, considering the situation the world is in, “a few billion ... is worth it.” He said the effort can save critical months to making a vaccine available, and thus restart economies sooner.