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Bill Gates is putting his shoulder into the push to develop a universal flu vaccine. The billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder announced Friday that his charity — the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — is offering $12 million in seed money to spur innovative thinking on a scientific challenge that has stumped the influenza research community for decades and is considered the holy grail of flu research. (Branswell, 4/27)

Bill Gates was talking to President Trump in the Oval Office last month when the conversation turned to the notion of a universal flu vaccine — probably, as Gates recalled in an interview, “the longest conversation about universal flu vaccine that the president’s ever had.” “You should associate yourself with American innovation. Wouldn’t you love to have the universal flu vaccine be something that really got kicked off and energized by you?” Gates recalled asking Trump. (Branswell, 4/30)

Bill Gates is glad his fellow billionaires Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, and Jamie Dimon are getting into health care. He’s not so sure their new effort will help unlock solutions for the entire U.S. health care system. Their plan to form an independent health care company for employees of their companies — Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase — has been hailed as a way to “disrupt” health care. In an interview with STAT, Gates said that while the industry titans might be able to curb costs and improve the health of their own employees, the broader U.S. health care system is “super complex” and rife with misincentives. (Thielking, 4/30)

Bill Gates says the U.S. government is falling short in preparing the nation and the world for the “significant probability of a large and lethal modern-day pandemic occurring in our lifetimes.” In an interview this week, the billionaire philanthropist said he has raised the issue of pandemic preparedness with President Trump since the 2016 presidential election. In his most recent meeting last month, Gates said he laid out the increasing risk of a bioterrorism attack and stressed the importance of U.S. funding for advanced research on new therapeutics, including a universal flu vaccine, which would protect against all or most strains of influenza. (Sun, 4/27)