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.
Apple showed some love to the MacBook Air and Mac Mini Tuesday. Reports ahead of the event anticipated the announcements, but that didn’t leave the crowd — made up of Apple employees, guests, partners, and media — any less enthused when C.E.O. Tim Cook and team finally got on stage. Cheddar's Hope King was in Brooklyn for the unveiling.
It's been nearly two weeks since Canada opened the retail market for recreational marijuana, and now it faces a shortage of supply across many of the retail operations in a number of provinces. "Given the robustness of the demand, suppliers clearly did have challenges getting the stores full and adequately supplied," Cowen Managing Director Vivien Azer told Cheddar's CannaBiz Tuesday.
T-Mobile President Mike Sievert spoke with Cheddar on Tuesday after the tech company announced quarterly earnings that topped expectations. The company's quarter included its highest ever service revenues and EBITDA in company history.
Facebook shares whipsawed in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company just narrowly missed third-quarter revenue and user estimates and forecast a continued ramp-up in spending.
Apple on Tuesday unveiled updated versions of its MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro lines from an event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The biggest update came in the form of a redesigned iPad Pro, the high-end model of the tablet the company debuted eight years ago and which Cook described on stage as "a magical piece of glass that transforms instantly into anything you want it to be."
You may have a Resideo product in your home and not even know it. The company, until this week a unit of Honeywell ($HON), makes products that are in over 150 million homes, but because it sells largely to contractors and distributors, it is not a brand many end users recognize. Now, as its own company, Resideo ($REZI) can compete on its own terms, and at the speed required in a fast-moving and ultra-competitive industry. "Being an independent company is going to help us go faster," said CEO Mike Nefkens.
Brex, the start-up that provides credit cards for start-ups, has created a rewards program for its customers that awards points for spending on ride-sharing, software, travel, and dining, as well as offers from partners like AWS, Salesforce, and WeWork.
Jamie Iannone, CEO of SamsClub.com, told Cheddar that the retailer's new "Sam's Club Now" store will use a variety of innovative technologies to make shopping easier and, as a benefit, attract new members. The new store opening in Dallas will eliminate check-out lines with "Scan & Go" technology powered by its app, as well as feature digital shopping lists, store navigation, and even augmented reality.
General Electric, the once mighty conglomerate that traces its roots back to the invention of the light bulb, delivered a hugely disappointing earnings report Tuesday morning, in which the company that was once known for its steady and generous payouts to investors slashed its quarterly dividend to just a penny.
Brad Twohig, partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, said that Fortnite has built itself into a kind of social network and that the community its developed will likely help the game maintain its popularity for some time to come.
