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.
The region's natural gas utility, Peoples Gas, is spending $30 million to build five gas-fired generating stations that will together churn out 20 megawatts – enough not only for the airport itself but a hotel and gas station that are on-site.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, November 27, 2019.
J. Michael Prince, U.S. Polo Assn. CEO, told Cheddar that the brand is behind on growing in the e-commerce space, but have plans to change that.
Airbnb launched Airbnb Cooking Experiences on Monday, which features more than 3,000 food-themed activities in over 75 countries.
Tesla's CEO tweeted out the number of people he claims have already put down money for a reserved spot in line for when the electric pickup truck rolls off the line.
The digital banking startup MoneyLion has appointed Samantha Roady to the newly-created role of chief operating officer as the startup looks to grow its product suite, membership offerings and customer base over the next year.
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.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
TRM Labs, the year-old crypto risk management startup, is planning to use its newly raised $4.2 million to grow its engineering and data science teams locally, expand into new markets, and accelerate product development, Esteban Castaño, co-founder and CEO of TRM Labs, told Cheddar Thursday.
Charles Schwab is reportedly planning a $26 billion purchase of TD Ameritrade in an unsurprising response to the industry's tectonic shift to zero-commission trading fees.
