Biopharmaceutical leader Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited has committed to donating 500 million yen (around €4.35 million) in support of a global initiative launched by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help countries combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
The financial contribution from one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms will enable the IAEA to increase its emergency assistance to Member States, which need quick and reliable diagnostic methods to contain the virus causing the potentially deadly disease.
This commitment is one of the largest ever private-sector donations to the IAEA, which announced in early March it would provide testing and biosafety equipment to countries requesting it, as well as expert advice and technical guidance.
So far, 119 countries have sought the IAEA’s assistance in using a nuclear-derived technique known as real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (real time RT-PCR), which makes it possible to identify the virus accurately within hours.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Takeda’s contribution would allow the IAEA to significantly ramp up its activities in helping the world control the pandemic and dispatch more testing kits to countries in need. It adds to the more than €22 million in extrabudgetary funding that over ten Member States have already pledged for the IAEA’s COVID-19 assistance. It is the IAEA’s largest technical cooperation project – both in terms of the amount of funding and the number of beneficiary countries – since the Vienna-based organization was founded in 1957.
Original source: IAEA
Published on 13 May 2020
