The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's charity, has donated $25 million to a research fund to help identify and develop treatments for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
CZI, run by Mr. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, has invested in the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, which helps coordinate research efforts to discover new drugs and treatments for the disease. The fund is already backed by $125 million in contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Health Fund and the Mastercard Impact Fund.
CZI said it has already provided $20 million to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator and has allocated another $5 million based on future needs. The Gates and Wellcome Foundations have each contributed up to $50 million, and Mastercard Impact has committed up to $25 million. COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will partner with the World Health Organization, various public and private organizations, and global regulatory and policymakers to coordinate research efforts .
"We are excited to partner with the Gates Foundation, Wellcome and Mastercard to help the biomedical research community accelerate the identification, development and testing of treatments for COVID-19," Chan and Zuckerberg said in a joint statement. The Therapeutics Accelerator will allow researchers to quickly determine whether existing drugs have a potential effect against COVID-19. We hope that these coordinated efforts will help stop the spread of COVID-19, as well as create common, reusable strategies to respond to future pandemics.β
CZI and Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, which researches ways to treat and prevent disease, are already working to increase testing for COVID-19 in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last week, CZI said it was committed to helping UC San Francisco run at least 1000 tests a day.
Source: 3dnews.ru