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.
Nearly all of cyclists who die in accidents weren't wearing helmets. Park & Diamond wants to change that. The start-up, which won the Red Bull Launchpad, is building a bike helmet that looks and feels like a regular baseball cap. Co-founders David Hall and Jordan Klein said the helmet is collapsible and light and made of a composite material that makes it as safe as a normal helmet.
Kimbal Musk, Tesla board member and brother of CEO Elon, told Cheddar, "If you have a Model 3 and you'd like it delivered, we can probably get done for you by the end of the week. If we haven't reached out to you, reach out to us."
Mark Cummins, CEO of Pointy, shares his advice for young entrepreneurs in our 'What Keeps You Going' segment.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, who launched the photo-sharing app in 2010, have resigned and will leave the company in the coming weeks, according to the New York Times. The news is the latest blow for Facebook, which bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion. The app has been a bright point for the company, with a billion monthly active users as of June.
Tune in to Cheddar Tuesday morning for the latest.
Mezu is joining the growing list of money-transfer apps by staking out a niche for privacy-conscious consumers. CEO Yuval Brisker said Mezu's selling point is the ability to transfer money without the use of personal information, like email or phone numbers.
Warren Schlichting, president of Sling TV, spoke to Cheddar from Denver Startup Week Monday about the changing media landscape. "I don't want to pay for things I'm not watching," he said, channeling the mantra of the 2.3 million cord-cutters who make up Sling's customer base.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know.
Comcast's $38.8 billion winning bid for British satellite broadcaster Sky was a "shocking price" to pay for international expansion, said Rich Greenfield, media and tech analyst at BTIG.
Shares of Pandora surged Monday after the satellite radio company announced an all-stock deal to acquire the streaming service. Sirius made a $480 million investment in the company last year, taking about a 15 percent stake in it. BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield says the deal is probably bittersweet for Pandora which "really failed as a public company."
