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.
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Spencer Rascoff, the serial entrepreneur behind Zillow, Hotwire, and Pacaso, is helping fuel the SPAC boom on Wall Street with the IPO of blank-check company Supernova.
The Norwalk, Connecticut-based Datto Holding Corp's unusual ticker symbol, MSP, stands for "managed service providers," which make up Datto's main clients and partners.
Pharmaceutical company Merck has partnered with drone startup Volansi to make remote vaccine deliveries. Hannan Parvizian, Volansi founder and CEO, joined Cheddar to discuss the partnership and supplying rural areas with temperature-controlled vaccines..
Social media is taking a particularly important role in this year's election as the platforms works to remove misinformation. Cheddar's Michelle Castillo reports.
Payment processer, Paya, is debuting on the Nasdaq after going public through a SPAC. Jeff Hack, Paya CEO, joined Cheddar to discuss why it was the right time to go public
Nokia says it has been tapped by NASA to build the first cellular communications network on the moon.
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.
Solar tracking company, Array Technologies, has made its trading debut. Jim Fusaro, Array Technologies CEO, joined Cheddar to discuss the discuss why it was time to take the company public.
