Cali Fund receives $7,085 against annual $1bn target — The Guardian
As the UN biodiversity conference COP17 began in Yerevan, Armenia, the Cali Fund had received $7,085 against an annual target of $1 billion. The total amount of pledged commitments stood at $10,656, The Guardian reports.
No contributions from major pharmaceutical companies
The Cali Fund calls on companies that profit from using genetic information from living organisms to voluntarily direct part of their funds to conservation projects in low-income countries. However, no major pharmaceutical company has made a contribution so far.
A Zero Carbon Analytics study calculated that the 15 largest pharmaceutical companies could have contributed a combined $756 million based on their 2025 results had they followed the recommended model: 1% of profit or 0.1% of revenue. According to the organization, the combined profits of these companies reached about $161 billion last year.
June Rubis, the representative of Indigenous peoples and local communities in Asia on the fund’s steering committee, said that pharmaceutical companies profit from nature but do not provide sufficient support for its protection and for the communities involved in biodiversity conservation.
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A mechanism for genetic data
The Cali Fund was officially launched in February 2025. Since then, it has received three contributions from small private companies: $5,000 from the British biotechnology company Prozomix, $1,000 from the UK-based TierraViva AI, and $1,085 from Belgium’s E-Biom.
At least half of the fund’s resources are planned to be directed toward priorities identified by Indigenous peoples and local communities. The mechanism is intended to close gaps that emerged due to the spread of digital information on genetic sequences, which is stored in open databases and used, among other things, in drug development.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said that the industry is committed to biodiversity conservation but has questions about the development and implementation of the mechanism. It believes the fund overlaps with existing legislation and does not take into account that digital genetic data are not used to create all medicines. Representatives of Sanofi and GSK also said they support the fund’s goal, while GSK said it would decide on voluntary contributions after receiving additional information about how it works.
