Fighting disease in the developing world requires lots of money and plenty of business savvy (among other things). The planet just got a dose of both, with a huge funding package passed by Congress and a new deal on malaria drugs brokered by Bill Clinton’s foundation.

The Senate last night passed a bill that will spend $50 billion over five years, mostly to fight AIDS in the developing world. President Bush was looking for $30 billion, but has said he would support the larger package.

PIDI Standard Ltd.

The Artemisia annua plant’s price has fluctuated widely in recent years, making it harder to get antimalarial drugs to poor nations.

One key sign of how popular AIDS funding has become: The bill, which passed by an 80-16 vote, was supported by many conservatives who tend to be budget hawks skeptical of foreign policy. The House has already passed a similar bill by a wide margin.

“This is by far the only true foreign policy program that’s working. The dollars are actually making a difference,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), told the Washington Post.

The malaria deal takes on an issue that’s made it tough to get drugs to the developing world lately: the wild price fluctuation of the plant extract artemisinin, a key ingredient in first-line malaria treatments.

Bill Clinton is expected to announce today a coalition that includes a consortium of two Chinese raw-artemisinin suppliers, two Indian companies that convert artemisinin into the active pharmaceutical ingredient and two Indian generic-drug companies, the WSJ reports.

The deal puts a cap on the price of the raw artemisinin in return for a guarantee that other consortium members will purchase large proportions of their artemisinin from the two participating suppliers, unless nonmembers can offer equal-quality product at a undisclosed discount.