The Cali Fund was created to raise $1bn annually by inviting businesses that profit from genetic information found in nature to make voluntary payments to protect biodiversity in developing nations. However, as of the start of the Cop17 biodiversity summit in Armenia this week, the fund had received just $10,656 in commitments, of which $7,085 had been deposited, according to a report from the Guardian. No major pharmaceutical company has contributed, despite the industry's reliance on genetic data from organisms worldwide to develop new medicines.
The fund is central to discussions at Cop17 in Yerevan and is part of wider efforts to close a $700bn gap in funding for nature conservation. At least half of its money will be directed to priorities identified by Indigenous peoples and local communities.
A study by Zero Carbon Analytics found that the top 15 pharmaceutical companies could have contributed a combined $756m last year had they followed the fund's suggested framework of 1% of profits or 0.1% of revenue. According to the analysis, those companies generated about $161bn in profits in 2025.
June Rubis of Macquarie University, an Indigenous peoples and local communities representative on the Cali Fund's steering committee, said companies do not appear to recognise the importance of protecting nature or supporting communities that defend biodiversity. "Look at how much profit these pharmaceutical companies are getting -- and we're only asking for a tiny percentage," Rubis said. "Definitely, they're free-riding on nature."
The fund was established to address loopholes created by advances in biotechnology that allow genetic information, or digital sequence information (DSI), to be stored in public databases, moving research away from reliance on physical samples. Since its official launch in February 2025, only three small private-sector firms have contributed: the UK-based Prozomix ($5,000), the British firm TierraViva AI ($1,000), and the Belgian company E-Biom ($1,085).
Brian O'Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, said, "More money has been spent on meetings talking about the Cali Fund than there is in the Cali Fund's coffers." He argued that voluntary contributions are insufficient and that companies should be compelled to pay.
The pharmaceutical industry has raised concerns about the fund's design. Guilherme Cintra, director of innovation policy at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, said the industry has "ongoing questions about the design and implementation of the mechanism." He said it overlaps with existing laws and relies on inaccurate assumptions about how data is used in medicine discovery, asking companies to pay a share of total revenue regardless of whether DSI was used.
A spokesperson for the Cali Fund described the amount raised so far as "disappointing but not entirely surprising," noting that comparable financial instruments typically take two to three years before contributions scale up. The spokesperson added that discussions at Cop17 would provide more information to companies, enabling them to come forward with commitments.
Sanofi said it recognises the critical importance of biodiversity and healthy ecosystems to human health and that protecting nature is core to its environmental strategy. GSK said open access to DSI is critical for medical innovation and pandemic response, adding that it supports the intent behind the Cali Fund and will decide on contributions when more is known about how the fund works alongside other mechanisms.
Victoria Kalyvas, author of the Zero Carbon Analytics analysis, said, "The future of health is written in nature's DNA. The pharmaceutical industry stands to lose a great deal from its destruction, as do patients."