Bill Gates and George Soros buy UK COVID test maker

Soros and Gates are a pair of billionaires who both share the goal of bringing more affordable testing for diseases, including COVID, to other parts of the world.

According to Forbes, the Soros Economic Development Fund and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations have teamed up to buy a UK developer of COVID tests. The company named Mologic will be renamed Global Access Health as part of the acquisition.

While it’s said other philanthropists are involved in the deal, Gates is named along Soros as leading the charge, buying Mologic for $41 million USD.

For the part of Gates' investment Mologic has a history. Back in 2016 the foundation gave the company a grant to fund “lowering the cost of rapid-delivery healthcare.”

Speaking on behalf of their thinking was Dan Wattendorf. The director of innovative technology solutions for the Gates Foundation told Financial Times: “Lack of community access to affordable, effective diagnostics for COVID—or other high-risk diseases—results in an inability to detect disease and direct resources to break chains of transmission.”

To put it more simply, the mindset here is getting back to basics. With the majority of the pandemic focus being on vaccines, working to further innovate in the testing department is still a priority.

The Chief Executive on the Soros side of the buyout called this a first for the foundation, describing it as a “buyout for good.” Their goal moving forward aims to improve the availability of testing in lower income countries. It’s described that Mologic is involved in tests for diseases such as bilharzia, dengue and river blindness, beyond pandemic-related hardware.

However the importance of rapid “lateral flow tests” is highlighted, seen as an essential tool to help societies reopen and continue to monitor the spread of COVID.

Bill Gates had a chance to chat with some others of the world’s wealthiest people earlier this month, as they gathered in Idaho for the Sun Valley conference.