Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have donated $25 million through their foundation to a philanthropic effort organized by Bill Gates to explore new coronavirus treatments.
The Gates Foundation donated $50 million last week to what it’s calling the “COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.” The initiative brings together life sciences companies to collaborate on the development of new vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for COVID-19.
“The Therapeutics Accelerator will enable researchers to quickly determine whether or not existing drugs have a potential benefit against COVID-19,” Chan and Zuckerberg said in a press release. “We hope these coordinated efforts will help stop the spread of COVID-19 as well as provide shared, reusable strategies to respond to future pandemics.”
The two donations are the largest from tech billionaires since the coronavirus outbreak. Wellcome and Mastercard are supporting the effort as well.
The goal of the initiative is to either develop a new drug or adapt an existing treatment that it could help distribute alongside partnering pharmaceutical companies.
The 15 companies participating in the project kicked off the effort by sharing their proprietary libraries of molecular compounds that have some history of being tested with COVID-19.
The lineup includes big names in biotech such as Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Instagram has launched a feature that urges teenagers to take breaks from the photo-sharing platform and announced other tools aimed at protecting young users from harmful content on the Facebook-owned service.
Refinery29 has launched their new gaming series, ‘GG,’ which features leading women and non-binary gamers through the lens of identity, entrepreneurship, wellbeing, community, self-expression, and personal beauty. Melissah Yang, entertainment director at Refinery29 joins Cheddar News to discuss the launch and how 'GG' is changing the game.
Hawaii Flooding, Beijing Boycott & Disrupting Death
New York City has become a testing ground for super-fast grocery delivery services like Gorillas, offering instant gratification in the 10 to 15 minutes.
Mercedes-Benz is bringing its first all-electric luxury vehicle brand, EQS, to the United States. Cheddar's Chloe Aiello takes a spin and reports.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
A month after Facebook changed its name to Meta, Square Inc. is changing its name to Block.
President Nayib Bukele announced last week that the Central American country plans to issue the world's first "Bitcoin bond" early next year.
Twitter says co-founder Jack Dorsey will step down as CEO of the social media platform.
The Treasury Department pushed for the requirement to help close the tax gap in the crypto industry by forcing better IRS reporting, but legislators on both sides of the aisle argue that the language is too broad and could curb innovation in the space.
