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.
Volkswagen gets its first chance to show off its new electric vehicle, the ID. Space Vizzion, even as the California government boycotts the show over some automakers siding with the White House in a fight over emissions standards.
For PayPal, whose customers comprise both consumers and merchants, this deal for Honey, the browser extension that scours the internet for coupons, helps the company move up the funnel to discovery.
Part of the updates includes testing “publisher white lists,” which will allow brands to select which accounts that their ads are approved to run on. It also includes centralized ways to create publisher blocklists, set ad inventory filters, and get reports.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, November 20, 2019.
Blockchain analytics startup Elliptic has added XRP, the native currency of the Ripple payment network, to its risk management suite and identified $400 million in XRP transactions linked to illicit activity, including scams, theft and money laundering.
The Growing Renewable Energy and Efficiency Now (or GREEN) Act would add five years to the so-called investment tax credit (ITC) that provides an upfront subsidy to solar and offshore wind projects.
Despite reports of a rough launch from some reviewers, Jack Buser, director of games and business development for Google, couldn't be more excited for the system's future.
Brandon Krieg, CEO of Stash, welcomes the fintech ambitions of companies like Google and Amazon saying it will "help us all stay on our toes."
Aircam Chief Technology Officer David Hopkins talked with Cheddar about how the app will allow amateur and pro photographer alike to automate the image downloading, editing, and sharing process.
The Winklevoss-led cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has made its first acquisition: a platform that lets users buy and manage non-fungible tokens called Nifty Gateway.
