Talk:Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute

History section

Hello editors, I'm Lee and I work for Gates MRI. I have some suggestions for improving the article, but I won't make any changes myself due to my conflict of interest. I think that the changes I'm going to suggest will help the article better fit Wikipedia guidelines on style and layout and make it more complete with better sourcing.

To start, I'd like to suggest creating a History section for the Institute, which will eventually replace the Activities and Partnering sections.

I'd like to create a History section because that seems to be a more standard heading that better fits Wikipedia's style guidelines. I've prepared four paragraphs for that section, but to make this request more digestible I'll only put the first one here. My suggestion for the first paragraph is to have it read something like this:

Gates MRI was founded in January 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as a nonprofit offshoot of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to Forbes, the organization focuses on developing treatments for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and diseases which cause diarrhea. Chief executive officer Emilio A. Emini said the organization focuses in particular on diseases that are most present in low and middle income countries which investment in treatment by large pharmaceutical companies is "limited and insufficient."

References

Please let me know what you think. I'm happy to answer any questions I can. LBGatesMRI (talk) 21:26, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Very reasonable; done (with some minor edits). I (and I'm sure others) would be happy to look at other proposals. Klbrain (talk) 21:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that, and offering to help more in the future! I really appreciate it. LBGatesMRI (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

LBGatesMRI

History section request 2

Hello editors, I've got some suggestions for expanding the History section. It's partially some reworking of content in the current Activities section and partially new content. Here's what I suggest adding to the History section, below the content currently there:

Upon its founding, the organization said it would focus on the early stages of research for cures and treatments before working with larger companies for large-scale production once proof of effectiveness had been established. Among its first treatments researched was revaccination with the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccine during late adolescence to further increase resistance to tuberculosis. As of May 2022, that research was still in clinical trials, expected to conclude in 2026.

Since then, the group has partnered with several others to explore treatments for various diseases. In 2020, Gates MRI partnered with Evotec, Johnson & Johnson, Otsuka Pharmaceutical, GSK plc, and TB Alliance to create the Project to Accelerate New Treatments for Tuberculosis (PAN-TB), a group working on developing new treatment regimens for tuberculosis. Gates MRI licensed the M72 TB vaccine from GSK in 2020 and began an observational epidemiology study on latent TB infection in preparation for Phase III trials.

References

The one source that isn't rendering is the Forbes article that's already present in the live article. It should carry over if this text is implemented.

I think this helps expand on the early history of Gates MRI and has a bit more of an encyclopedic tone. Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions. @Klbrain: would you be willing to review this request as well? I'd really appreciate it! LBGatesMRI (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Done, with some minor changes and re-organization of existing material. Klbrain (talk) 22:07, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Your changes look good to me. Thanks for the help! LBGatesMRI (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

: History section request 3

Hello editors, I've got some final suggestions for updating the History section. This is some more recent content about some research that Gates MRI is working on and some basic information about the leadership. I thought this could go at the end of the History section after the information on the M72 vaccine:

In 2021, the Gates MRI partnered with the biotechnology firm Atreca to license a monoclonal antibody treatment for malaria. In August 2022, plans for Phase II trials for a new tuberculosis treatment developed by PAN-TB were announced. Gates MRI partnered with Merck Group in 2022 to further develop drugs to treat drug-resistant strains of TB.

The organization was led from its founding until 2021 by Penny Heaton. She was succeeded by Emilio A. Emini. Gates MRI is led by Emini and chief medical officer Michael Dunne.

References

The one source that isn't rendering is the Pharmaceutical Technology article that's already present in the live article.

I think this helps complete the timeline so far for Gates MRI and clarifies the current leadership. @Klbrain: would you be willing to take a look at this as well? I'd really appreciate it! LBGatesMRI (talk) 22:45, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree that those are appropriate contributions. I've add this, separating those two paragraphs as perhaps leadership is better covered in a section separate from projects. Klbrain (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you so much! LBGatesMRI (talk) 19:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Infobox request

Hello editors, I thought it might be helpful if I put together an infobox for this article. This is what I came up with:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute
Established	January 2018 (2018-01)
Founders	Bill Gates
Founded at	Cambridge, Massachusetts
Type	Nonprofit
Purpose	Medical research
Location	Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Region served	Global
Key people	Emilio A. Emini (CEO) Michael Dunne (CMO)
Parent organization	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Budget (2018)	US$100 million
Funding	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Endowment (2018)	$273 million
Website	www.gatesmri.org

Let me know what you think! I know infoboxes are in most articles so hopefully this helps with that. I have a conflict of interest so I won't make the changes myself. @Klbrain:, would you be willing to take a look at this? I'd really appreciate it. LBGatesMRI (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

This seems fine to me — the only catch is it'd be nice to cite the 100 mil budget figure. I checked the finances page very quickly and didn't see that; I am not well versed in financial and accounting documentation. Does that come from the "$100M-a-year nonprofit biotech" headline in the Fierce Biotech article? That article, from 2018, states that "Funding will tick up over that period, too, topping out at a planned $100 million a year." Has it reached that level yet? WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 21:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

 Done Done. Note Whiny's comment above and amend if needed. PK650 (talk) 04:53, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Lead update

Hi editors, I noticed the lead was pretty outdated after the recent updates. I had a suggestion for what it could look like:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (Gates MRI) is an American nonprofit medical research organization headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The institute, created by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a product development organization that focuses on developing treatments for tuberculosis, malaria, diarrheal diseases and maternal and pediatric illnesses in low- and middle-income countries.

I think this sums up things nicely and removes some outdated information. Please let me know what you think! As always, I won't make any changes myself because of my COI. @Klbrain:, would you be willing to take a look? Thanks in advance for your consideration. LBGatesMRI (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Go ahead: I have reviewed these proposed changes and suggest that you go ahead and make the proposed changes to the page. Actualcpscm (talk) 16:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Request to remove outdated/improperly sourced information

Hello editors, Lee here again with a bit of a tricky request. I noticed a few places in the article where there is some information that is either outdated or improperly sourced. I suggest removing that information. In particular, I'm looking at the following:

• The Partnering section reads like a mission statement and is only sourced back to the Gates MRI website. I've seen in some places that Wikipedia does not like mission statements and since the information there is demonstrated by other parts of the article, this section seems redundant after the recent changes have been made.
• I don't think describing Gates MRI as a "biotech-within-a-charity" (as is done in the Activities section) is accurate. Gates MRI is a medical research organization, not a biotech.
• The sentence "Pharmaceutical companies usually have a high failure rate for drug development." doesn't seem relevant to Gates MRI.
• Places where the fatalities related to diseases and infant mortality (Activities, the second paragraph of Projects) are listed aren't really accurate anymore and that information, while tragic, isn't really relevant to the article. I'd suggest removing those sentences.

Please let me know what you think! As always I won't make any changes myself due to my COI. @Klbrain: would you be willing to take a look at this one too? LBGatesMRI (talk) 19:04, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping; was happy to have a look at those, editing in 4 separate edits for each point. I mostly agree, although have kept some of the cited WHO statistics because of the context it provides for the 2019 change/addition of research focus. Klbrain (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Klbrain - greetings, this is Lee with one final request. Please could we delete the reference "Its CEO is Penny Heaton, MD", in the final sentence of the first paragraph of the article? As mentioned further down the piece, our current CEO is Emilio Emini. Thank you so much for your help. LBGatesMRI (talk) 19:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Done, and thanks for your patience. FYI for future reference, requests are usually answered faster if you use the Edit Request template each time. Take care, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:21, 28 February 2023 (UTC)