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.
Gene Munster isn't worried about Apple. The managing partner of Loup Ventures and venture capitalist told Cheddar Tuesday that the tit-for-tat with Qualcomm over iPhone sales in China is insignificant for Apple's long-term value.
If forced to choose between putting their child in a driverless car or in a vehicle driven by a stranger, the majority of parents, Ford reports, would prefer a non-human to take the wheel. "When we talk about trust, that's somewhere where we see something really jumping out at us," Sheryl Connelly, futurist at Ford, told Cheddar Monday.
Tally is on track to expand its product offering in 2019, Cheddar has learned. “With 2019 ahead of us, we’re laying the foundation for being able to automate beyond credit card debt,” CEO and founder Jason Brown said, potentially referring to savings and investing, or other kinds of debt like student and auto loans.
Apple filed an appeal on Monday to overturn a court-ordered ban on the import and sale of some iPhones in China. Chipmaker Qualcomm requested an injunction against Apple ($AAPL), alleging patent violations on a particular feature that allows users to adjust the size and appearance of photos, and another that manages applications with a touchscreen.
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A.I. robot Sophia is getting a software upgrade, one that will inch her ー and perhaps A.I. ー even closer to humanity. According to her creator, not only will Sophia earn her citizenship, she will reach a level of advancement equal to human beings in roughly five to 10 years.
After a year of reckoning for big technology, Microsoft President Brad Smith is urging his peers to learn from their mistakes and improve their privacy protections ー and for governments to impose regulations that make sure they follow through. "Change is not easy; it's, in fact, painful. But it can be done. And when it is done, everybody is better in my view," he said.
Cigarette giant Altria said it would spend $1.8 billion for a 45 percent stake in Cronos, the Canadian cannabis producer, signaling a massive bet that the legalization of marijuana will spread as cigarette smoking declines. The announcement follows reports that Altria is also talking to Juul about a stake in the wildly-popular vape brand, which would be another hedge against Altria's core tobacco business, which includes brands like Marlboro and Skoal.
PayPal employees are giving its peers a course in crypto token economics. The company has launched an internal blockchain-based incentive platform for employees, Cheddar has learned. The initiative was built over a period of six months by about 25 people in PayPal's San Jose-based innovation lab and launched in mid-November, according to Michael Todasco, the director of innovation.
