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UofL to create New Vision of Health Campus for pioneering work to increase health equity

The University of Louisville is creating a new campus in downtown Louisville to be known as the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute – New Vision…

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The University of Louisville is creating a new campus in downtown Louisville to be known as the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute – New Vision of Health Campus, where study will focus on health as a shared community resource, incorporating environmental and cultural factors. The campus will be both a world-class research center and a nexus for community engagement, spawning citizen scientists and making health equity everyone’s pursuit. It will consist of two historic buildings on West Muhammad Ali Boulevard totaling 133,000 square feet and an adjacent garden space.

Credit: UofL Image

The University of Louisville is creating a new campus in downtown Louisville to be known as the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute – New Vision of Health Campus, where study will focus on health as a shared community resource, incorporating environmental and cultural factors. The campus will be both a world-class research center and a nexus for community engagement, spawning citizen scientists and making health equity everyone’s pursuit. It will consist of two historic buildings on West Muhammad Ali Boulevard totaling 133,000 square feet and an adjacent garden space.

The launch of the New Vision of Health Campus is made possible by a commitment from health advocate Christina Lee Brown of Louisville valued at $47 million by the university. Brown is providing $30 million over 20 years to support the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute and is giving rent-free use of the buildings to the university, equating to a $17-million in-kind donation. In a special meeting earlier today, the UofL Board of Trustees approved a lease granting UofL use of the property, which is owned by Brown. The university plans to seek additional partnerships and financial support for the campus and its mission.

“We are incredibly grateful to Mrs. Brown for this generous gift of support and this special space in the heart of the city,” said Lori Stewart Gonzalez, interim president of UofL. “On this new campus, UofL researchers will increase our understanding of the many aspects of our environment that contribute to optimum health for everyone, here and beyond. It embodies our commitment to health equity.”

“To grow from our past and promote long, fulfilling lives, we shouldn’t chase any single cause. We live in a complex, interdependent world where history is our shared legacy and health is our shared aspiration,” Brown said. “By honestly recognizing our common stories, we can frame a new vision of health which unifies us. It can inspire healthier lives, healthier communities and a healthier world.”

The New Vision of Health Campus will include specially designed laboratories and offices for the UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute that will engage researchers and community members to learn how natural, cultural and personal environments impact health. Institute researchers work with community partners to discover how to build healthier cities, creating insights and models to improve health in Louisville and around the world.

The research will be directed by Aruni Bhatnagar, director of the UofL Envirome Institute, professor of medicine and chief of the UofL Division of Environmental Medicine.

“Our quest is to pursue the new vision that health is a resource that needs to be cultivated through conducive physical and environmental conditions,” Bhatnagar said. “Health is more than the absence of disease. Health is a resilience that helps individuals withstand all forms of stress. We want to move the discussion of health away from disease and instead focus on actively promoting health before disease occurs.”

The UofL Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute was created in 2018 with a $5-million gift from Brown that charged UofL researchers to take a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to understanding how the human-environment interrelationship affects peoples’ lives and to convert that knowledge to actionable steps to promote human health. This research and the new funding announced today support the university’s grand challenge strategic research priority of “Advancing Our Health,” an initiative to lead a transformative shift in how we understand, promote and recover health through all stages of life.

Research highlights from the Envirome Institute include the Green Heart Project, documenting the health impacts of living among greater levels of vegetation, the Co-Immunity Project, tracking the presence and spread of COVID-19 in the community through testing of individuals and wastewater, and research to document the effects of smoking and vaping on health. Bhatnagar is co-director of the American Heart Association’s Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science, and the center’s research was employed as key evidence for ending the sale of flavored vaping products in California. The institute also houses the only NIH Superfund Research Center devoted to studying the effects of superfund chemicals on cardiovascular health, diabetes and obesity.

“This is UofL research that could transform the way we promote well-being by revealing and decoding the factors that affect it,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “We are proud to work with Christina Lee Brown and appreciate her continued support to further this important effort in advancing our health. Together, we will help people here in Louisville and around the world live lives that are not just longer, but healthier and more resilient.”

The gift is the single largest philanthropic gift in the university’s history.

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ATTENTION MEDIA:
B-roll of the buildings here: https://louisville.app.box.com/s/onx2ashpe2hyk61t45fargyxyuoafxzg 
Photos of the buildings here: https://louisville.app.box.com/s/dzv6dl8y0wmr29diwvhan9eu13sx144y
Video about the campus here: https://vimeo.com/691894331/6935275942


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KIMM finds solution to medical waste problem, which has become a major national issue

A medical waste treatment system, which is capable of 99.9999 percent sterilization by using high-temperature and high-pressure steam, has been developed…

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A medical waste treatment system, which is capable of 99.9999 percent sterilization by using high-temperature and high-pressure steam, has been developed for the first time in the country.

Credit: Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM)

A medical waste treatment system, which is capable of 99.9999 percent sterilization by using high-temperature and high-pressure steam, has been developed for the first time in the country.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Seog-Hyeon Ryu, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has succeeded in developing an on-site-disposal type medical waste sterilization system that can help to resolve the problem caused by medical waste, which has become a national and social issue as the volume of medical waste continues to increase every year. This project was launched as a basic business support program of the KIMM and was expanded into a demonstration project of Daejeon Metropolitan City. Then, in collaboration with VITALS Co., Ltd., a technology transfer corporation, the medical waste treatment system was developed as a finished product capable of processing more than 100 kilograms of medical waste per hour, and was demonstrated at the Chungnam National University Hospital.

Moreover, the installation and use of this product have been approved by the Geumgang Basin Environmental Office of the Ministry of Environment. All certification-related work for the installation and operation of this product at the Chungnam National University Hospital has been completed, including the passage of an installation test for efficiency and stability conducted by the Korea Testing Laboratory.

Through collaboration with VITALS Co., Ltd., a corporation specializing in inhalation toxicity systems, the research team led by Principal Researcher Bangwoo Han of the Department of Urban Environment Research of the KIMM’s Eco-Friendly Energy Research Division developed a high-temperature, high-pressure steam sterilization-type medical waste treatment system by using a high-temperature antimicrobial technology capable of processing biologically hazardous substances such as virus and bacteria with high efficiency. After pulverizing medical waste into small pieces so that high-temperature steam can penetrate deep into the interior of the medical waste, steam was then compressed in order to raise the boiling point of the saturated steam to over 100 degrees Celsius, thereby further improving the sterilization effect of the steam.

Meanwhile, in the case of the high-pressure steam sterilization method, it is vitally important to allow the airtight, high-temperature and high-pressure steam to penetrate deep into the medical waste. Therefore, the research team aimed to improve the sterilization effect of medical waste by increasing the contact efficiency between the pulverized medical waste and the aerosolized steam.

By using this technology, the research team succeeded in processing medical waste at a temperature of 138 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes or at 145 degrees Celsius for more than five (5) minutes, which is the world’s highest level. By doing so, the research team achieved a sterilization performance of 99.9999 percent targeting biological indicator bacteria at five (5) different locations within the sterilization chamber. This technology received certification as an NET (New Excellent Technology) in 2023.

Until now, medical waste has been sterilized by heating the exposed moisture using microwaves. However, this method requires caution because workers are likely to be exposed to electromagnetic waves and the entrance of foreign substances such as metals may lead to accidents.

In Korea, medical waste is mostly processed at exclusive medical waste incinerators and must be discharged in strict isolation from general waste. Hence, professional efforts are required to prevent the risk of infection during the transportation and incineration of medical waste, which requires a loss of cost and manpower.

If medical waste is processed directly at hospitals and converted into general waste by applying the newly developed technology, this can help to eliminate the risk of infection during the loading and transportation processes and significantly reduce waste disposal costs. By processing 30 percent of medical waste generated annually, hospitals can save costs worth KRW 71.8 billion. Moreover, it can significantly contribute to the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) management of hospitals by reducing the amount of incinerated waste and shortening the transportation distance of medical waste.

[*Allbaro System (statistical data from 2021): Unit cost of treatment for each type of waste for the calculation of performance guarantee insurance money for abandoned wastes (Ministry of Environment Public Notification No. 2021-259, amended on December 3, 2021). Amount of medical waste generated on an annual basis: 217,915 tons; Medical waste: KRW 1,397 per ton; General waste from business sites subject to incineration: KRW 299 per ton]

As the size and structure of the installation space varies for each hospital, installing a standardized commercial equipment can be a challenge. However, during the demonstration process at the Chungnam National University Hospital, the new system was developed in a way that allows the size and arrangement thereof to be easily adjusted depending on the installation site. Therefore, it can be highly advantageous in terms of on-site applicability.

Principal Researcher Bangwoo Han of the KIMM was quoted as saying, “The high-temperature, high-pressure steam sterilization technology for medical waste involves the eradication of almost all infectious bacteria in a completely sealed environment. Therefore, close cooperation with participating companies that have the capacity to develop airtight chamber technology is very important in materializing this technology.” He added, “We will make all-out efforts to expand this technology to the sterilization treatment of infected animal carcasses in the future.”

 

President Seog-Hyeon Ryu of the KIMM was quoted as saying, “The latest research outcome is significantly meaningful in that it shows the important role played by government-contributed research institutes in resolving national challenges. The latest technology, which has been developed through the KIMM’s business support program, has been expanded to a demonstration project through cooperation among the industry, academia, research institutes, and the government of Daejeon Metropolitan City.” President Ryu added, “We will continue to proactively support these regional projects and strive to develop technologies that contribute to the health and safety of the public.”

 

Meanwhile, this research was conducted with the support of the project for the “development of ultra-high performance infectious waste treatment system capable of eliminating 99.9999 percent of viruses in response to the post-coronavirus era,” one of the basic business support programs of the KIMM, as well as the project for the “demonstration and development of a safety design convergence-type high-pressure steam sterilization system for on-site treatment of medical waste,” part of Daejeon Metropolitan City’s “Daejeon-type New Convergence Industry Creation Special Zone Technology Demonstration Project.”

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The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

 

This research was conducted with the support of the project for the “development of ultra-high performance infectious waste treatment system capable of eliminating 99.9999 percent of viruses in response to the post-coronavirus era,” one of the basic business support programs of the KIMM, as well as the project for the “demonstration and development of a safety design convergence-type high-pressure steam sterilization system for on-site treatment of medical waste,” part of Daejeon Metropolitan City’s “Daejeon-type New Convergence Industry Creation Special Zone Technology Demonstration Project.”


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IFM’s Hat Trick and Reflections On Option-To-Buy M&A

Today IFM Therapeutics announced the acquisition of IFM Due, one of its subsidiaries, by Novartis. Back in Sept 2019, IFM granted Novartis the right to…

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Today IFM Therapeutics announced the acquisition of IFM Due, one of its subsidiaries, by Novartis. Back in Sept 2019, IFM granted Novartis the right to acquire IFM Due as part of an “option to buy” collaboration around cGAS-STING antagonists for autoimmune disease.

This secures for IFM what is a rarity for a single biotech company: a liquidity hat trick, as this milestone represents the third successful exit of an IFM Therapeutics subsidiary since its inception in 2015.

Back in 2017, BMS purchased IFM’s  NLRP3 and STING agonists for cancer.  In early 2019, Novartis acquired IFM Tre for NLRP3 antagonists for autoimmune disease, which are now being studied in multiple Phase 2 studies. Then, later in 2019, Novartis secured the right to acquire IFM Due after their lead program entered clinical development. Since inception, across the three exits, IFM has secured over $700M in upfront cash payments and north of $3B in biobucks.

Kudos to the team, led by CEO Martin Seidel since 2019, for their impressive and continued R&D and BD success.

Option-to-Acquire Deals

These days option-based M&A deals aren’t in vogue: in large part because capital generally remains abundant despite the contraction, and there’s still a focus on “going big” for most startup companies.  That said, lean capital efficiency around asset-centric product development with a partner can still drive great returns. In different settings or stages of the market cycle, different deal configurations can make sense.

During the pandemic boom, when the world was awash in capital chasing deals, “going long” as independent company was an easy choice for most teams. But in tighter markets, taking painful levels of equity dilution may be less compelling than securing a lucrative option-based M&A deal.

For historical context, these option-based M&A deals were largely borne out of necessity in far more challenging capital markets (2010-2012) on the venture front, when both the paucity of private financing and the tepid exit environment for early stage deals posed real risks to biotech investment theses. Pharma was willing to engage on early clinical or even preclinical assets with these risk-sharing structures as a way to secure optionality for their emerging pipelines.

As a comparison, in 2012, total venture capital funding into biotech was less than quarter of what it is now, even post bubble contraction, and back then we had witnessed only a couple dozen IPOs in the prior 3 years combined. And most of those IPOs were later stage assets in 2010-2012.  Times were tough for biotech venture capital.  Option-based deals and capital efficient business models were part of ecosystem’s need for experimentation and external R&D innovation.

Many flavors of these option-based deals continued to get done for the rest of the decade, and indeed some are still getting done, albeit at a much less frequent cadence.  Today, the availability of capital on the supply side, and the reduced appetite for preclinical or early stage acquisitions on the demand side, have limited the role of these option to buy transactions in the current ecosystem.

But if the circumstances are right, these deals can still make some sense: a constructive combination of corporate strategy, funding needs, risk mitigation, and collaborative expertise must come together. In fact, Arkuda Therapeutics, one of our neuroscience companies, just announced a new option deal with Janssen.

Stepping back, it’ s worth asking what has been the industry’s success rate with these “option to buy” deals.

Positive anecdotes of acquisition options being exercised over the past few years are easy to find. We’ve seen Takeda exercise its right to acquire Maverick for T-cell engagers and GammaDelta for its cellular immunotherapy, among other deals. AbbVie recently did the same with Mitokinin for a Parkinson’s drug. On the negative side, in a high profile story last month, Gilead bailed on purchasing Tizona after securing that expensive $300M option a few years ago.

But these are indeed just a few anecdotes; what about data since these deal structures emerged circa 2010? Unfortunately, as these are mostly private deals with undisclosed terms, often small enough to be less material to the large Pharma buyer, there’s really no great source of comprehensive data on the subject. But a reasonable guess is that the proportion of these deals where the acquisition right is exercised is likely 30%.

This estimate comes from triangulating from a few sources. A quick and dirty dataset from DealForma, courtesy of Tim Opler at Stifel, suggests 30% or so for deals 2010-2020.  Talking to lawyers from Goodwin and Cooley, they also suggest ballpark of 30-50% in their experience.  The shareholder representatives at SRS Acquiom (who manage post-M&A milestones and escrows) also shared with me that about 33%+ of the option deals they tracked had converted positively to an acquisition.  As you might expect, this number is not that different than milestone payouts after an outright acquisition, or future payments in licensing deals. R&D failure rates and aggregate PoS will frequently dictate that within a few years, only a third of programs will remain alive and well.

Atlas’ experience with Option-based M&A deals

Looking back, we’ve done nearly a dozen of these option-to-buy deals since 2010. These took many flavors, from strategic venture co-creation where the option was granted at inception (e.g., built-to-buy deals like Arteaus and Annovation) to other deals where the option was sold as part of BD transaction for a maturing company (e.g., Lysosomal Therapeutics for GBA-PD).

Our hit rate with the initial option holder has been about 40%; these are cases where the initial Pharma that bought the option moves ahead and exercises that right to purchase the company. Most of these initial deals were done around pre- or peri-clinical stage assets.  But equally interesting, if not more so, is that in situations where the option expired without being exercised, but the asset continued forward into development, all of these were subsequently acquired by other Pharma buyers – and all eight of these investments generated positive returns for Atlas funds. For example, Rodin and Ataxion had option deals with Biogen (here, here) that weren’t exercised, and went on to be acquired by Alkermes and Novartis (here, here). And Nimbus Lakshmi for TYK2 was originally an option deal with Celgene, and went on to be purchased by Takeda.

For the two that weren’t acquired via the option or later, science was the driving factor. Spero was originally an LLC holding company model, and Roche had a right to purchase a subsidiary with a quorum-sensing antibacterial program (MvfR).  And Quartet had a non-opioid pain program where Merck had acquired an option.  Both of these latter programs were terminated for failing to advance in R&D.

Option deals are often criticized for “capping the upside” or creating “captive companies” – and there’s certainly some truth to that. These deals are structured, typically with pre-specified return curves, so there is a dollar value that one is locked into and the presence of the option right typically precludes a frothy IPO scenario. But in aggregate across milestones and royalties, these deals can still secure significant “Top 1%” venture upside though if negotiated properly and when the asset reaches the market: for example, based only on public disclosures, Arteaus generated north of $300M in payments across the upfront, milestones, and royalties, after spending less than $18M in equity capital. The key is to make sure the right-side of the return tail are included in the deal configuration – so if the drug progresses to the market, everyone wins.

Importantly, once in place, these deals largely protect both the founders and early stage investors from further equity dilution. While management teams that are getting reloaded with new stock with every financing may be indifferent to dilution, existing shareholders (founders and investors alike) often aren’t – so they may find these deals, when negotiated favorably, to be attractive relative to the alternative of being washed out of the cap table. This is obviously less of a risk in a world where the cost of capital is low and funding widely available.

These deal structures also have some other meaningful benefits worth considering though: they reduce financing risk in challenging equity capital markets, as the buyer often funds the entity with an option payment through the M&A trigger event, and they reduce exit risk, as they have a pre-specified path to realizing liquidity. Further, the idea that the assets are “tainted” if the buyer walks hasn’t been borne out in our experience, where all of the entities with active assets after the original option deal expired were subsequently acquired by other players, as noted above.

In addition, an outright sale often puts our prized programs in the hands of large and plodding bureaucracies before they’ve been brought to patients or later points in development. This can obviously frustrate development progress. For many capable teams, keeping the asset in their stewardship even while being “captive”, so they can move it quickly down the R&D path themselves, is an appealing alternative to an outright sale – especially if there’s greater appreciation of value with that option point.

Option-based M&A deals aren’t right for every company or every situation, and in recent years have been used only sparingly across the sector. They obviously only work in practice for private companies, often as alternative to larger dilutive financings on the road to an IPO. But for asset-centric stories with clear development paths and known capital requirements, they can still be a useful tool in the BD toolbox – and can generate attractive venture-like returns for shareholders.

Like others in the biotech ecosystem, Atlas hasn’t done many of these deals in recent funds. And it’s unlikely these deals will come back in vogue with what appears to be 2024’s more constructive fundraising environment (one that’s willing to fund early stage stories), but if things get tighter or Pharma re-engages earlier in the asset continuum, these could return to being important BD tools. It will be interesting to see what role they may play in the broader external R&D landscape over the next few years.

Most importantly, circling back to point of the blog, kudos to the team at IFM and our partners at Novartis!

The post IFM’s Hat Trick and Reflections On Option-To-Buy M&A appeared first on LifeSciVC.

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Major typhoid fever surveillance study in sub-Saharan Africa indicates need for the introduction of typhoid conjugate vaccines in endemic countries

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high…

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There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Credit: IVI

There is a high burden of typhoid fever in sub-Saharan African countries, according to a new study published today in The Lancet Global Health. This high burden combined with the threat of typhoid strains resistant to antibiotic treatment calls for stronger prevention strategies, including the use and implementation of typhoid conjugate vaccines (TCVs) in endemic settings along with improvements in access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

 

The findings from this 4-year study, the Severe Typhoid in Africa (SETA) program, offers new typhoid fever burden estimates from six countries: Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria, with four countries recording more than 100 cases for every 100,000 person-years of observation, which is considered a high burden. The highest incidence of typhoid was found in DRC with 315 cases per 100,000 people while children between 2-14 years of age were shown to be at highest risk across all 25 study sites.

 

There are an estimated 12.5 to 16.3 million cases of typhoid every year with 140,000 deaths. However, with generic symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and abdominal pain, and the need for blood culture sampling to make a definitive diagnosis, it is difficult for governments to capture the true burden of typhoid in their countries.

 

“Our goal through SETA was to address these gaps in typhoid disease burden data,” said lead author Dr. Florian Marks, Deputy Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI). “Our estimates indicate that introduction of TCV in endemic settings would go to lengths in protecting communities, especially school-aged children, against this potentially deadly—but preventable—disease.”

 

In addition to disease incidence, this study also showed that the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Salmonella Typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid fever, has led to more reliance beyond the traditional first line of antibiotic treatment. If left untreated, severe cases of the disease can lead to intestinal perforation and even death. This suggests that prevention through vaccination may play a critical role in not only protecting against typhoid fever but reducing the spread of drug-resistant strains of the bacteria.

 

There are two TCVs prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. In February 2024, IVI and SK bioscience announced that a third TCV, SKYTyphoid™, also achieved WHO PQ, paving the way for public procurement and increasing the global supply.

 

Alongside the SETA disease burden study, IVI has been working with colleagues in three African countries to show the real-world impact of TCV vaccination. These studies include a cluster-randomized trial in Agogo, Ghana and two effectiveness studies following mass vaccination in Kisantu, DRC and Imerintsiatosika, Madagascar.

 

Dr. Birkneh Tilahun Tadesse, Associate Director General at IVI and Head of the Real-World Evidence Department, explains, “Through these vaccine effectiveness studies, we aim to show the full public health value of TCV in settings that are directly impacted by a high burden of typhoid fever.” He adds, “Our final objective of course is to eliminate typhoid or to at least reduce the burden to low incidence levels, and that’s what we are attempting in Fiji with an island-wide vaccination campaign.”

 

As more countries in typhoid endemic countries, namely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, consider TCV in national immunization programs, these data will help inform evidence-based policy decisions around typhoid prevention and control.

 

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About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.

IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is recently pre-qualified by WHO.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, a Country Office in Austria, and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

 

CONTACT

Aerie Em, Global Communications & Advocacy Manager
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@ivi.int


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