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 Utah-based virtual reality startup expanding its "add-on" for retail centers in a bid to draw shoppers back to malls and into the worlds of Hollywood's most popular franchises through its virtual reality experiences.
While the combined media giants will be able to produce more content, the jury is still out on whether or not ViacomCBS will be able to compete with other streaming behemoths.
Greenbox Robotics' artificial intelligence-powered robots at CBD and wellness shop Come Back Daily. Founder Zack Johnson hopes machine will not only boost business and speed up sales, but also educate customers about hemp compound CBD.
Founder and CEO Coulter Lewis told Cheddar that Sunday aims to distinguish itself within the industry by focusing on the strength of grass, rather than on killing weeds and pests.
A Cheddar video illustrating a salmon cannon developed to help fish pass over dams in seconds, rather than days, surprisingly brightened up social media in 2019.
VineSight, an AI-based start-up, is working to detect misinformation attacks against candidates like Joe Biden or Kamala Harris early during their campaigns.
The two-year old startup plans to build a network of satellites to allow cellphones to connect to a network anywhere on Earth's surface.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Aug. 12, 2019.
This fence bends up to 8 inches.
Michael Sonnenshein, managing director of Grayscale, told Cheddar that recent developments in the U.S.-China trade war are proving to be evidence that Bitcoin has emerged as a safe-haven asset.
