Biotechnology's trade group, armed with a $1 million donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said yesterday it was launching a nonprofit institute dedicated to fighting disease in the developing world. 

The institute, called the BIO Ventures for Global Health, plans to work with biotechnology companies to deliver vaccines and medicines to poor countries overlooked by the industry. It also intends to address diseases endemic to the Third World that are ignored by an industry focused on profits. 

The venture was announced at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's annual convention in San Francisco. The nonprofit venture also received a $100,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. 

The nonprofit aims to cobble together deals with biotechnology companies and charities to develop and deliver drugs for unprofitable markets in the developing world. 

The Gates and Rockefeller foundations have funded similar projects to improve health in the Third World. The Gates Foundation in particular is helping erode the historically antagonistic stance nonprofit groups and corporate America have taken toward each other in addressing global health issues. 

The Gates Foundation, for instance, has donated $10 million to the San Francisco-based OneWorld Health, a nonprofit drug company with the same goals as the BIO venture announced yesterday. 

"There's great untapped potential for the biotech sector's incredible (research and development) engine to develop new health solutions for the developing world," the Gates Foundation's Dr. Richard Klausner said in a prepared statement. 

Several similar private-public partnerships have emerged in recent years, including the Swiss giant Novartis' nonprofit Institute for Tropical Diseases and the New York-based Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development. 

Carl Feldbaum, who is retiring as BIO president after 12 years, will serve on the board of directors of the nonprofit.