UN Cali Biodiversity Fund Struggles to Gain Momentum
The global fund for genetic resource usage has collected only $7,085 since becoming operational in February 2025.
Updated on Oct. 20, 2026 in Biotech
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Established in late 2024 at COP16, the Cali Fund aims to secure contributions from firms profiting from digital genetic sequence data. To date, the initiative has collected just $7,085 from three corporate contributors.
Why it matters
The fund faces challenges because participation is voluntary rather than mandatory, leading to limited corporate buy-in. While designers once projected annual revenue of one billion dollars, the current lack of binding legislation hinders participation.
The mechanism requests companies in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and biotech sectors pay 1 percent of annual profits or 0.1 percent of turnover. Three firms, TierraViva AI, Prozomix, and E-BIOM, have provided $1,000, $5,000, and $1,085 respectively.
The players
TierraViva AI
This company is one of three corporate entities that have contributed $1,000 to the Cali Fund.
Prozomix
This organization has provided a $5,000 contribution to support the global biodiversity fund.
E-BIOM
This biotech entity contributed $1,085 to the fund since its operations began in 2025.
The details
The fund utilizes international certificates to track payments for the use of digital sequence information derived from genetic resources. Because no country has enacted national legislation to encourage or mandate these payments, many firms remain reluctant to contribute to the voluntary system.
Timeline
The Cali Fund was adopted at COP16 at the end of 2024.
The fund began its operations in February 2025.
The current UN biodiversity summit in Armenia concludes on October 30, 2026.
The Tech Race
The Cali Fund serves as a modern attempt to update the framework established by the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing for the digital era. It marks a significant shift as the industry transitions from physical material tracking to managing digital sequence information.
The current low participation rate suggests that voluntary corporate contributions will not yet impact consumer pricing in the pharmaceutical or cosmetic sectors. Users and researchers should monitor whether future legislative mandates change the compliance costs for these firms.
The takeaway
The gap between the fund's billion-dollar projection and current contributions highlights the difficulty of implementing voluntary global benefit-sharing models. Success likely depends on whether participating nations move toward legally binding requirements for companies using genetic resources.
Further reading
For more background on industry developments in this sector, visit the Biotech section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Kuwait Times.
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