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.
Champion, the apparel company that has regained life as a cool-kid staple, is partnering with eSports teams. Champion's president of sports apparel John Fryer called gaming a "global phenomenon."
Bobby Lee of digital asset firm BTCC told Cheddar that assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum are more comparable to securities than crypto tokens, and it's where he said he remains bullish.
Lance Ulanoff, tech and social media expert, and Ian Sherr, executive editor of CNET News, agreed that Google's decision to not send a top executive to testify to Congress alongside Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey is going to cause significant damage among lawmakers for the company.
The activist, diversity consultant, and author is unsure if tech executives like Sheryl Sandberg and Jack Dorsey are equipped to fix platforms that they in part helped create and which, at least in the case of Twitter, might be fundamentally broken.
Allstate's partnership with Uber to provide drivers with commercial auto coverage now encompasses four states, including some of the New York market. The expansion hedges against a possible future where fewer car owners means fewer individual policies, said Tom Troy, executive vice president for Allstate's business insurance unit.
Tamara Warren, automotive journalist, said that Mercedes's new electric SUV is the first of what will be many luxury electric cars, and Tesla's about to get a lot more competition.
Will Uber hit its self-imposed deadline to file for an IPO in 2019? Joshua Franklin, IPO and private equity correspondent for Reuters, said it's on track.
Sachin Kansal, Uber's chief safety officer, told Cheddar about the new features rolling out to Uber drivers that were built with their feedback in mind. The announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of Dara Khosrowshahi taking over as the company's CEO.
Wednesday is a busy day on Capitol Hill. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are testifying before the Senate as questions grow over foreign influence and fake news. Plus, Brett Kavanaugh returns to Capitol Hill to face questions from lawmakers in day two of his confirmation hearings. And we sit down with Tiffany Pham, CEO and founder of the website Mogul, to discuss how women can succeed in business.
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