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FDA testing coronavirus treatments including chloroquine, plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients

U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn addressed the ongoing work of the agency in terms of its work on potential treatments and vaccines for the COVID-19 coronavirus currently spreading globally. Despite a claim early in Thursday’s White House briefing on the pandemic by President Donald Trump that one proposed treatment, anti-malarial chloroquine, had already been approved by the FDA for COVID-19 treatment, Hahn said that in fact the agency is currently looking at wide-spread clinical trials of the drug, but it is not yet approved for that use.

“In the short term, we’re looking at drugs that are already approved for other indications,” Dr. Hahn said. “Many Americans have read studies and heard media reports about this drug chloroquine, which is an anti-malarial drug. It’s already approved, as the President said, for the treatment of malaria [Trump had not said this, but had instead said it was now approved for COVID-19] as well as an arthritis condition. That’s a drug that the President has directed us to take a closer look at, as to whether an expanded use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients. And again, we want to do that in the setting of a clinical trial, a large pragmatic clinical trial to actually gather that information and answer the question that needs to be answered.”

Another potential treatment which has shown signs of possible positive effect, remdesivir, was also cited by trump as being very “near” approval for use by the FDA. Hahn clarified that in fact, while remdesivir is currently undergoing clinical trials, it’s following the normal FDA process for approval for clinical medical therapeutic use in the U.S. He did say he was declined to comment on ongoing commercial arrangements with remdesivir maker Gilead when asked when we might expect the drug to be available commercially.

Hahn also highlighted another experimental treatment possibility that the FDA is investing: Using plasma derived from blood taken from coronavirus patients who have recovered, and injecting that into other patients in an attempt to potentially jump start their own immune response.

“There’s a cross agency effort about something called convalescent plasma,” he said. “This is a pretty exciting area. And again, this is something that we have given assistance to other countries with as this crisis has developed, so FDA has been working for some time on this. If you’ve been exposed to coronavirus and you’re better, you don’t have the virus in your blood. We could collect the blood now this is a possible treatment. This is not a proven treatment, I just want to emphasize that, [but we would] collect the blood, concentrate that and have the ability, once it’s pathogen free, that is virus free, be able to give that to other patients and the immunoglobulins, the immune response could potentially provide a benefit to patients.”

All of the treatments currently approved for use by the FDA to treat other ailments are available to medical professionals in case of “compassionate use,” Hahn said. This provision allows a practitioner to use these medications on COVID-19 patients, even though they aren’t technically cleared specifically to do so, in extreme cases. The benefit of this compassionate use model is that doctors who take advantage of that are then required to share back all patient info regarding administration and response to the drug, which helps inform ongoing trials and regulatory efforts.

Numerous clinical studies have been conducted globally regarding the performance of chloroquine and remdesivir since the beginning of the pandemic. Most recently a French study that included use of a chloroquine variant called hydroxychloroquine found that it performed particularly well in tandem with an antibiotic known as azithromycin. Still, Hahn said that even if a drug is already approved for other use, it’s crucial for the safe deployment of any therapeutic treatment that researchers determine the right does to protect a patient’s health.

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Home diagnostics startup Everlywell is launching an at-home coronavirus test sample kit

The state of testing for the novel coronavirus currently spreading globally in the U.S. is abysmal, relative to other developed countries, but there are a number of efforts underway to help improve availability. One company doing their part is at-home lab testing startup Everlywell, which has been offering a number of in-home self collection kits for things like food sensitivity, metabolism, thyroid and more. As of Monday March 23, it’ll also offer a COVID-19 sample collection kit for home use.

Everlywell’s test kit includes swab-based collection equipment, as well as shipping materials that ensure safe transport of a person’s sample as outlined by the CDC and UN Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods to help prevent any possible risk to mail carriers or couriers actually moving the packages. The samples collected are then tested by labs certified for COVID-19 testing under the FDA Emergency Use Authorization issued to help build out America’s testing capacity.

The company also includes overnight shipping labels for the samples, and says that results will be available in a secure, online format within 48 hours. For anyone who tests positive, Everlywell will also be connecting them with certified physicians that can provide them with consultations and guidance via telehealth, and it notes that any positive results will also be sent to federal and state reporting agencies, as is currently required by mandate.

I asked Everlywell about the accuracy of these tests relative to other methods, and they noted that their at-home collection method have been validated by a number of peer-reviewed medical studies. Experts have been calling for use of at-home collection as one way to increase collection volume and lower the risk for front-line medical staff, too. The tests themselves are also all conducted at certified private labs, with results reviewed by board-certified physicians for accuracy.

Initially, Everlywell says it will have 30,000 at-home diagnostic kits available, though it hopes to eventually scale that to up to be able to offer tests to up to 250,000 people weekly. Getting to that target could “take several weeks” or even “a few months,” however, according to the company, because of a global shortage of the nasopharyngeal swabs that are used in COVID-19 testing, which affects not only the startup’s ability to produce test kits, but everyone else’s as well. The company also says that it’s working on potential validation of testing for the new coronavirus using different types of biological samples that would use different collection methods, in case of future approval of their use by health regulators.

Everlywell will have a screening process in place via their website, based on CDC guidelines, to determine who gets the kits. They also carry a $135 charge, which Everlywell says it sees no profit from, and which can also be covered by participating insurance providers. The company is also trying to see if it can provide them free of charge in partnership with government and public health partners.

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Pfizer and BioNTech announce joint development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine

Pharma giant Pfizer announced on Tuesday that it’s working with BioNTech, a German company working on new kinds of immunotherapy treatments, on a potential COVID-19 vaccine. The joint effort, confirmed Tuesday via a signed letter of intent, will see both partners work together on a a messenger RNA-based vaccine that will seek to prevent people from contracting the new coronavirus.

It’s worth a reminder that any vaccine is going to take, at minimum, between a year and 18 months to develop and certify for general. human use, so don’t think that this is going to result in any kind of short-term solution. But the collaboration does bring together one of the largest and most established players in the realm of pharmaceutical biotech, along with a younger company working at the forefront of mRNA-based immune therapies.

These therapies don’t use samples of the virus itself, as typical vaccines do (in either dead or weakened form, to jump-start the body’s natural defences). Instead, they rely on RNA to kickstart the production of proteins similar enough to the virus that they trigger the body’s development of antibodies effective against the actual target.

This collaboration should result in a clinical test that could kick off as early as April. Both parties aren’t starting from scratch in terms of their work on mRNA-based vaccines: they began working together on R&D to create treatments for the flu starting in 2018.

While work on the collaborative effort begins immediately, across teams located in both the U.S. and German, the two partners still have to hammer out details including financial terms and commercialization of whatever results. The fact that they’re willing to begin working before the ink is dry on those details should give you some idea of the urgency felt behind the project.

This isn’t the only mRNA-based potential COVID-19 vaccine in development: Earlier this week, Moderna announced that they’d already begun human clinical trials of their own coronavirus immunotherapy, after fast-tracking its development in partnership with the National Institutes of Health.

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Waymo suspends robotaxi service except for its truly driverless vehicles

Waymo said Tuesday it is pausing operations of Waymo One, a service in the Phoenix area that allows the public to hail rides in self-driving vehicles with trained human safety operators behind the wheel, in in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Waymo is also halting testing on public roads in California.

However, Waymo will keep some operations up and running, notably its truly driverless vehicles, which don’t require a human safety driver, according to an announcement on its website Tuesday. These driverless vehicles are used in the Phoenix area as part of Waymo’s early rider program that lets vetted members of the public to hail a ride.

Both the Waymo early rider program and Waymo One service use self-driving Chrysler  Pacifica minivans to shuttle Phoenix residents in a geofenced area that covers several suburbs, including Chandler and Tempe. Until last fall, all of these “self-driving rides” had a human safety driver behind the wheel.

In October, Waymo started to invite members of its early rider program to take driverless rides with no human safety operator behind the wheel.

Waymo says that it has stepped up efforts to clean its driverless vehicles. The vehicles will be cleaned and sanitized several times throughout the day. The company said it has also added sanitizing products to every Waymo car for rider use.

Here’s the entire statement:

In the interest of the health and safety of our riders and the entire Waymo community, we’re pausing our Waymo One service with trained drivers in Metro Phoenix for now as we continue to watch COVID-19 developments. We’ve also paused driving in California in line with local guidance. 

Our fully driverless operations in Phoenix will continue for now within our early rider program, along with our local delivery and trucking efforts.

We can carry out driverless, delivery, and trucking services for our riders and partners while respecting the important social distancing and hygiene guidelines shared by the CDC and local authorities. Removing the human driver holds great promise for not only for making our roads safer, but for helping our riders stay healthy in these uncertain times.

We’ll continue to monitor COVID-19 developments carefully, and we’ll reach out to our riders if there are any further service changes. Until then, our Rider Support team will be available to answer any questions. 

Stay healthy and thanks from all of us at Waymo.

The move follows guidance from the federal government to take special efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19. It also comes after at least one incident of a human safety driver in a Waymo One vehicle refusing to pick up someone at Intel’s campus in Chandler, Arizona because they had heard a case of COVID-19 had been reported.

Waymo’s partnership with UPS, which involves delivery trips and truck testing outside of California will continue.

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WHO calls for rapid escalation in global COVID-19 response, including testing and isolation

The World Health Organization (WHO) held a briefing today for media to update them on the current status of the global pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus, and called out worldwide efforts on what the agency’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom described as not an “urgent enough”  response in terms of fielding a truly comprehensive approach.

In prepared remarks to kick-off the media Q&A, Adhanom said that while to date we have “seen a rapid escalation in social distancing measures, like closing schools and cancelling spring events,” there still hasn’t been enough done on a global level in terms of “testing, isolation and contact tracing,” which he said formed the “backbone of the response.”

“You cannot fight a fire blindfolded,” Adhnom said. “And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. Test every suspected case. If they test positive, isolate them and find out who they have been in close contact with up to 2 days before they developed symptoms, and test those people too.”

The agency noted that it has shipped a total of 1.5 million tests to 120 countries thus far. The U.S. in particular has lagged behind its global peers when it comes to testing, with the country refusing the WHO tests offered and opting instead to develop its own CDC-developed tests, whose initial rollout met with mirrors. Based on data from last week, the U.S., even now that private lab tests are coming online to attempt to supplement the CDC-issued ones, the country is still far behind Japan, the UK, Italy, China, South Korea and many others when it comes to testing on a per capita basis compared to its population.

Adhanom went on to advise that all confirmed cases be isolated once identified, in health facilities if possible, but in either makeshift facilities set up for the purpose if that’s not an option, or for those with very mild symptoms, at home. He clarified this meant that care-givers treating people at home should wear a medical mask when they occupy shared space, and that the patient should both sleep separately and use a different bathroom.

“Once again, our key message is: test, test, test,” Adhanom said. “This is a serious disease. Although the evidence we have suggests that those over 60 are at highest risk, young people, including children, have died.”

He also pointed out that while we’re now seeing epidemics even in developed countries with advanced health care systems and institutions in place, facing significant challenges, there’s an even greater pending global threat as the pandemic spreads to low-income nations. Adhanom said that limiting impact among those vulnerable populations requires “every country and every individual to do everything they can to stop transmission.”

During the Q&A, Adhanom went further, noting that while the immediate threat still needs to be addressed, and addressed promptly, the COVID-19 pandemic has also revealed fundamental issues with our global approach to pandemic preparedness that we’ll need to address longer-term.

“Globally we have a very, very serious weakness in terms of preparedness,” he said. “While doing our best to suppress this pandemic, at the same time we have to think about planning for the future, for the long-term. Improving our preparedness, making sure that the world is better prepared.”

“It’s time to commit to invest in our weaknesses, and minimize our risk as a global community,” Adhanom continued. “No country can develop or strengthen its system and protect itself from outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics. The world is more intertwined than ever before – globalization cannot be reversed […] we need to make sure that we act in unison to build the global preparedness and the global resistance.”

WHO also reiterated and clarified the best actions that individuals can take to help contribute to the global effort to combat the spread of the virus. The organization’s COVID-19 Technical Lead Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infection disease epidemiologist, acknowledged that people are feeling afraid, and stressed the importance of hand-washing as one action that everyone can take to make a difference.

“Being scared is normal, what we need to do is channel that energy into something positive, and making sure that you know what you can do to protect yourself,” she said. What we do know that works in terms of your hands, and in terms of what you need to do, is washing your hands. We say this all the time. And it may not be the most exciting thing, but it’s the most important thing that you can do to protect yourselves.”

“Every single person who is washing their hands is helping themselves and others,” she continued, noting that everyone should “wash [their] hands as much as they possibly can.”

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America’s largest companies are not covered under congressional coronavirus aid package

America’s largest companies are not covered under a bill passed by the House of Representatives on Friday that is supposed to support American workers impacted by the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The bill still has to be voted on by the Senate and approved before it can be signed into law, but its structure leaves a gaping hole in the prevention strategy the government has said is necessary to reduce the COVID-19 outbreak in the US.

“No American worker should worry about missing a paycheck if they’re feeling ill,” said Vice President Mike Pence at the Sunday press briefing from the Coronavirus Task Force. “If you’re sick with a respiratory illness stay home.”

However, millions of Americans potentially don’t have the ability to make that choice under the congressional aid package touted by both Democrats and Republicans. By excluding companies with more than 500 employees from the Congressional aid, the health and welfare of millions of Americans in industries providing goods, manufacturing, and vital services to most of the country is being left up to the discretion of their employers.

Details of the legislative compromise were first reported by The New York Times yesterday. And chart published by The New York Times illustrated just how many companies didn’t have paid sick leave policies in place as the coronavirus began to spread in the US (companies have changed policies to respond to the coronavirus).

Image courtesy of The New York Times

Big technology companies took the lead early this month in changing policies for their workers and by the end of last week many of the country’s largest employers had followed suit. But it looks like their work won’t be covered under the government’s current plan — and that any measures to extend sick leave and paid time off will be limited to a response to the current outbreak.

Big tech commits to paying wages for hourly employees affected by coronavirus plans

These large employers have already responded by closing stores or reducing hours in areas where most cases of the novel coronavirus have been diagnosed — and companies operating in most of those states are required by law to offer paid leave to their hourly employees and contractors.

Companies who have responded to the outbreak by changing their time-off and sick leave policies include Walmart, Target, Darden Restaurants (the owner of the Olive Garden restaurant chain), Starbucks, Lowes, and KFC, have joined tech companies and gig economy businesses like Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Instacart, Microsoft, Postmates, Salesforce, and Uber in offering extended leave benefits to employees affected by the coronavirus.

These kinds of guarantees can go a long way to ensuring that hourly workers in the country don’t have to choose between their health and their employment. The inability to pass a law that would cover all workers puts everyone at risk.

Without government stepping in, industries are crafting their own responses. Late Sunday, automakers including GM, Ford, and FiatChrysler joined the United Auto Workers union in announcing the creation of a coronavirus task force to coordinate an industrywide response for the automotive sector.

GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler join UAW to form coronavirus task force

As the Pew Research Center noted last week, the bill proposed by House Democrats had initially proposed temporary federal sick leave covering workers with COVID-19 or caring for family members with two-thirds of their wages for up to three months; expiring in January 2021. The measure would have also guaranteed private employers give workers seven days of paid sick leave with another 14 days available immediately in the event of future public health emergencies.

Most workers have less than nine days of sick leave covered under current state legislation. There is no national mandate for paid sick leave. After one year on the job, 22 percent of workers have access to less than five days, while another 46 percent of employees can get five-to-nine days of paid sick leave. Only 38 percent of workers have between ten and fourteen days of leave.

The Pew Research Center also reported that the lack of access to paid sick leave increases as wages decline. Over ninety percent of workers receiving hourly rages over $32.21 have some form of paid sick leave. Only about 50 percent of workers who make $13.80 or less have access to some form of paid sick leave. For Americans who make under $10.80 an hour, only about 30 percent receive any sick leave.

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CDC issues new guidance against gatherings of 50 or more people for the next 8 weeks

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance (also available in full below) regarding large group gatherings and events in light of the ongoing effort to combat the spread of coronavirus in the country. The new CDC guidance recommends against holding any events or group gatherings of 50 or more people across the U.S., and notes that this guidance applies for at least the next eight weeks.

The updated guidance, issued on Sunday night, also indicates that gatherings (of any size) should only take place provided that they can do so while also honouring the recommendations that exist around limiting exposure to especially vulnerable populations, as well as those around hand hygiene (hand washing and sanitization) and social distancing (increasing personal space to lower the chances of transmission from an infected individual).

As with less stringent, earlier guidance against larger group gatherings, the CDC notes that this guideline should not be considered to apply to the “day to day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses.” Nor, the CDC says, is it meant to “supersede the advice of local public health officials.”

It is meant to slow the pace of transmission, and to reduce the chances of introduction of the virus to communities where it isn’t present, the agency says. Social distancing and isolation are the best possible course for reducing the impact of the current coronavirus pandemic to levels even approaching manageability by health care professionals, according to all experts qualified to advise on the subject.

Despite the qualification in this CDC guidance regarding the suspension of school operations and businesses, many of these measures are being implemented at the local and state level. New York City public schools will be shut down as of next week, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office announced on Sunday after mounting pressure to follow a number of other states in this measure, and multiple other states have introduced measures to close or limit the operating hours and capacities of restaurants and bars this weekend as the situation continues to evolve.

This new guidance extends through April and into May, which is longer than a lot of the existing tentative end dates for existing social distancing and coronavirus-related travel restriction measures put in place by private companies and event organizers. It’s clear from this modification of its advice on the matter that the CDC anticipates greater impact for longer durations, at least when it comes to high-risk situations like densely packed groups of many individuals including conferences, concerts and trade shows – but extending even to much smaller gatherings like weddings and large birthday parties.

Despite many new efforts to limit group gatherings, this past weekend saw both a fair number of revellers gathering to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, flying in the face of the good advice of experts, and major backlogs at airports caused by arrivals waylaid by a more stringent, but also more confused and potentially dangerous federally-instituted screening process for arriving passengers at major airports.

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Despite Trump’s claims, Google isn’t building the coronavirus screening site — and it’s not ready

In a press conference at the White House, President Trump today announced that 1,700 Google engineers were working on a Coronavirus screening site. That site was supposedly the first step in a new screening process that would lead people from figuring out if their symptoms warranted more testing to the location of new ‘drive through’ testing stations. But Trump was wrong. This screening site isn’t being developed by Google . Instead, it’s being built by Verily, Alphabet’s life science division — and it’s not ready to launch yet either.

While both share the same parent company in Alphabet, these are two very different companies. In addition, as Verily noted in a statement it provided almost three hours after Trump made the announcement, this site isn’t quite ready yet.

“Verily is developing a tool to help triage individuals for COVID-19 testing. We are in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time,” the company said in its statement. “We appreciate the support of government officials and industry partners and thank the Google engineers who have volunteered to be part of this effort.”

Dr. Debbie Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator speaks as US President Donald Trump (R) and other members of the White House Coronavirus Task Forcee listen at a press conference on COVID-19, known as the coronavirus, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, March 13, 2020. – Trump is declaring coronavirus a national emergency. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Verily specifically mentions that the site is in its ‘early stages.’ Debbie Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, as well as Trump, made no mention of the fact that this site wasn’t ready yet or that it would only roll out in the Bay Area at first.

Instead, anybody watching the press conference surely came away with the impression that the site was essentially ready, especially given its pivotal role in the overall screening process.

“I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a website,” Trump said. “It’s gonna be very quickly done — unlike websites of the past — to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. We have many, many locations behind us, by the way. We cover this country and large parts of the world, by the way. We’re not gonna be talking about the world right now, but we cover very, very strongly our country. Stores in virtually every location. Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress.”

Similarly, when Birx presented the new screening approach, she specifically noted that the process will start with the screening website. Given some of Trump’s earlier comments in the press conference, a number of pundits believed that the site would be ready by Sunday night.

Now, it’s not uncommon for anybody outside of the tech world to use Alphabet and Google interchangeably. Still, Verily is not Google and the Bay Area is not the whole country. Those are important facts.

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Applications for TC Pitch Night: Mobility 2020 are now open

Founders: it’s time to get moving. On May 13, the night before TC Sessions: Mobility 2020, TechCrunch is hosting a private Pitch Night for mobility-focused startups. We’re looking to feature 10 early-stage mobility startups that are breaking barriers in the industry.

TechCrunch is always on the hunt for the most disruptive tech in the industry, and this time our spotlight is shining on mobility.

The line-up for TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 is lit. We’ve got the major players, from Boris Sofman of Waymo and Nancy Sun of Ike to Trucks VC’s Reilly Brennan, Shin-pei Tsay, director of policy for cities and Transportation at Uber and Jody Kelman, who heads the self-driving platform at Lyft’s Level 5 program.

Now we want to select the early-stage startups, the underdogs, to pitch with TechCrunch. We’re on the lookout for startups that have a relevant impact on mobility, including micromobility, large-scale fleet management software, flying cars, autonomous vehicle technology, sensors, mapping and battery tech.

How does it work?

Apply here with a demo video of your hardware or software working. TechCrunch editorial will read every application and select the top 10 companies to feature at Pitch Night on May 13, and provide complimentary tickets to the Mobility 2020 main event. Companies will be pitching in front of VCs, TC editors, industry leaders from across the states and a panel of expert judges.

The judges will then select the top five, yes FIVE companies, to pitch on the main stage at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 in front of more than a thousand attendees and the industry’s top experts and innovators. The deadline to apply is April 8. Selections will occur on a rolling basis, so get your application in ASAP.

The top 10 selected companies will receive two complimentary main event tickets, an hour training with the Startup Battlefield Editor and a chance to participate in CrunchMatch: TC’s Meeting Matching Program. So, what are you waiting for? Get a move on and apply today. 

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Gates, Wellcome and Mastercard launch $125 million fund to finance COVID-19 treatments

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard announced a new initiative yesterday to accelerate technologies designed to identify, assess, develop, and scale treatments to the COVID-19 epidemic.

The COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator will evaluate new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients with COVID-19 in the immediate term, and other viral pathogens in the future, according to a statement from the Gates Foundation.

As part of the initiative, the three partners committed to “equitable access, including making products available and affordable in low-resource settings.”

That’s an issue right now as healthcare systems struggle with access to testing kits and potentially high-cost therapeutics developed by private industry. The government agencies tasked with responding to the outbreak apparently lack the resources to engage in such an initiative and are relying on the private sector to help.

The immediate goal for the new accelerator is to catalyze the evaluation and development of new and repurposed drugs and biologics to treat patients with COVID-19. 

Right now, there aren’t any broad-spectrum antivirals or immunotherapies available to combat the spread of emerging pathogens — and certainly none approved for use on COVID-19, according to the Gates Foundation statement.

Gates and Wellcome, a non-profit foundation, are each contributing up to $50 million to the accelerator, with the Gates Foundation money pulled from its $100 million commitment to finance a COVID-19 response made in February.

“Viruses like COVID-19 spread rapidly, but the development of vaccines and treatments to stop them moves slowly,” said Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a statement. “If we want to make the world safe from outbreaks like COVID-19, particularly for those most vulnerable, then we need to find a way to make research and development move faster. That requires governments, private enterprise, and philanthropic organizations to act quickly to fund R&D.”

The new accelerator will work with the World Health Organization, government and private sector funders and other organizations along with regulators and policy-setting institutions, according to a statement, and will focus on everything from drug pipeline development through manufacturing and expanding production and distribution.

For the Gates Foundation, the cross-disciplinary approach was one of the lessons learned from its approach to containing the Ebola outbreak in 2014.

According to a statement from the foundation, the accelerator will operate as a joint initiative of the funders and will pursue a three different strategies. It will identify compounds and potential novel therapies, work with industry partners, and coordinate with regulators to get treatments into market.

“This virus is an unprecedented global threat, and one for which we must propel international partnerships to develop treatments, rapid diagnostics, and vaccines. Science is moving at a phenomenal pace against COVID-19, but to get ahead of this epidemic we need greater investment and to ensure research co-ordination,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcome, in a statement. “The Therapeutics Accelerator will allow us to do this for potential treatments with support for research, development, assessment, and manufacturing. COVID-19 is an extremely challenging virus, but we’ve proved that through collaborating across borders we can tackle emerging infectious diseases.”