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.
After a year of both digital drama and innovation, Cheddar is looking ahead to the top five gadgets to watch next year. CNET's Bridget Carey and Cheddar's Hope King gazed into Cheddar's Crystal Ball, and picked the top five gadget trends most likely to make an entrance in 2019.
The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was an "enforcement action, not a trade-related action," according to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Ross told Cheddar's Megan Pratz that the arrest of Meng in Vancouver was a response to her flouting of sanctions ー and not a retaliatory strike or warning shot against a major Chinese telecom corporation.
As Cheddar reflects on 2018, we are profiling the most innovative, flamboyant, and often-controversial entrepreneurs and corporate leaders who delivered the year's most memorable moments in business. Of the CEO Class of 2018, who was crowned Biggest Flirt? Class Clown? Check Cheddar.com for all the Cheddar Awards and more year-end coverage.
Facebook’s blockchain group, led by David Marcus, has ambitious plans to potentially disrupt the entire payments industry with its own cryptocurrency, but the company is also running into recruiting challenges amid its many public scandals.
Apple says it will build a $1 billion new campus in Austin, Tex. that would almost double the size of its current footprint in the city, with the room to house as many as 15,000 new jobs.
2018 was a year of serious advancement in tech. It brought us more driver-less cars, Bitcoin adoption, and more A.I. But as the year dwindles, we're looking to the future, not the past. As we gaze into Cheddar's Crystal Ball, here are our top five picks for the technology that is most likely to advance even further in 2019.
The e-scooter market is steadily growing more competitive, but Spin's leader isn't fazed ー he's got Ford on his side. "We've got a great capital backer, a company that believes in the long-term vision that we have," Euwyn Poon, co-founder and president of Spin, told Cheddar Wednesday. "And I think we're the company that's going to be here to stay."
Ray J has built an unconventional career to say the least, but the musician and television personality-turned entrepreneur ー and new father ー says he has turned over a new leaf in his personal and professional life, thanks to a leader who once inspired him: Elon Musk.
Big beverage and big tobacco may be seducing some players in the burgeoning marijuana market, but Canada-based Aurora Cannabis is not one of them. In a Tuesday interview with Cheddar, CEO Terry Booth said it's just too soon for his company, one of the world's largest medical marijuana producers, to jump in bed with a major name in alcohol or tobacco.
As ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft rush to debut on the public markets, the pressure is on. "You can falter out of the gates, because people don't know how to value a ride-share company," Phil Haslett, founder and chief revenue officer of EquityZen told Cheddar on Tuesday.
