The Rockefeller Foundation Launches $30M Advance Market Commitment with Thermo Fisher Scientific to Ramp Up Procurement and Distribution of Covid-19 Testing
NEW YORK — As America’s vaccination efforts get off to a slower than anticipated start, The Rockefeller Foundation announces a new $30 million Advance Market Commitment (AMC) to scale up pandemic testing needs and safely reopen schools, communities, and the economy. The investment serves as a financial guarantee that enables Thermo Fisher Scientific to procure and strategically stock up to $30 million in Covid-19 tests at a time. In addition to incentivizing Covid-19 test manufacturers through guaranteed demand, the distribution of the tests will occur on a priority basis to the 23 participants of The Rockefeller Foundation’s State and Territory Alliance for Testing, followed by other public and private buyers.
“Just like we need breakthroughs in the lab, we need breakthroughs in the marketplace to get tests to the frontlines quicker, cheaper, and more efficiently than ever before,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation. “This innovative collaboration will change business as usual, avoid detrimental competition between states, and help us deploy rapid tests straight to schools, nursing homes, and workplaces to stop outbreaks before they spread.”
The $30 million investment to the Advance Market Commitment is made through RF Catalytic Capital, Inc. (RFCC), the Foundation’s public charity. This is the RFCC’s first initiative which was launched in September 2020 as a new innovative tool for foundations, impact investors, businesses, and governments to combine their resources to scale funding solutions and bring about transformational change during the Covid-19 response and recovery.
As tests are bought and sold, the AMC will replenish, allowing for additional scale beyond the initial $30 million commitment. The first order of 300,000 Covid-19 tests, costing $9 million, has already been purchased and sold to states through the facility.
Even when vaccination efforts start to accelerate, the U.S. still needs a massive scale-up of testing to inform decision-makers on where to effectively target resources to keep the pandemic under control. However, a lack of effective coordination between federal and state governments, as well as quickly evolving testing technologies and protocols, have made it difficult for states to accurately plan for how many tests they will need to purchase and when. This in turn has led to competition between states in purchasing limited test supplies and a lack of timely access to additional testing capacity when needed most...