Thursday, December 20, 2007

Meeting (pre-PCC) at EEOB run by Mike Magan of NSC and Bob Kadlec of HSC to flesh out possibility of putting together a major POTUS initiative on “Control or Elimination of Tuberculosis” to announce at the State of the Union Address in Jan. 2008. After having various agencies present a totality of a program that would cost billions, it was decided that since there really will not be any new money, or if there was, it would be very little, we should focus on the well-circumscribed topic of TB Vaccine research. I was tasked to do this and to write language for the State of the Union Address. In my proposal, I presented the case that this would cost relatively little. NIH spends $150 million in 2007 on TB research ($120 M is NIAID). Of this $20 million is on TB Vaccine Research – this is about 25% of world’s TB vaccine research spending with Gates spending about 45% (they spend most of their TB money on vaccine). The Global Plan to Stop TB – 2006-2015 calls for $184 million in 2009 (the FY that we are talking about). If we tripled our spending by adding $40 million to the $20 million, this would give $60 million. Right before the meeting Rajeev Venkayya (who left HSC and will be joining Gates) called and e-mailed me saying that he has arranged a call between Secr. Leavitt and Tachi Yamada from Gates to agree that Bill Gates, Jr. will commit to a significant increase in Gates funding for TB if the USG puts up more money. I have submitted a proposal for a $40 million increase for FY 2009 and I have included language for the Address. Let us hope that this flies. Then I will have had impact on PEPFAR, the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and now the TB initiative.