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.
Microsoft is offering a rare peek behind the "cloud" with virtual tours of its Azure public data centers.
A fiery crash near Houston with no one behind the wheel of a Tesla is drawing scrutiny from federal agencies that could bring new regulation of electronic systems that take on some driving tasks.
Venmo will allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on its app, the latest mainstream financial platform to wade into alternative currency like Bitcoin.
Despite a measurable impact that the COVID-19 pandemic made on carbon emissions throughout 2020, researchers are warning that to hold back climate change, nations need to keep pushing for reductions.
Garry Kasparov is launching an online platform called Kasparovchess that will allow chess fans to play and learn online.
Apple said it has an agreement to reinstate Parler, the social network popular with supporters of former President Donald Trump it kicked off its app store in January over ties to the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol.
Two federal agencies are sending teams to investigate the fatal crash of a Tesla near Houston in which local authorities say no one was behind the wheel.
NASA's experimental Mars helicopter has taken flight. The little 4-pound helicopter named Ingenuity rose into the thin air above the dusty red surface of Mars on Monday, achieving the first powered flight by an aircraft on another planet.
Ezra Kucharz, chief business officer at DraftKings, talked to Cheddar about the online sportsbook's deal with the NFL and the future of legal sports gambling in the U.S.
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.
