(March 26, 2020) – A consortium of life sciences companies announced on March 25 a collaboration to accelerate the development, manufacture, and delivery of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for COVID-19, according to a release from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The life sciences industry brings a range of assets, resources, and expertise needed to identify effective and scalable solutions to the pandemic, which is affecting billions worldwide,” the release said. “The impact on health systems, economies, and livelihoods is profound, and an effective response requires an unprecedented collaboration across governments, academia, the private sector, and the philanthropic community.”
As co-chair of a consortium life science companies headquartered across three continents, Vas Narasimhan, chief executive officer of Novartis, said, “We feel a deep shared responsibility to see if there are specific areas where collaboration across the life sciences industry and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation can accelerate solutions to this pandemic. In addition to the individual contributions companies are already making, collective action is critical to ensure any promising studies into vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics are quickly scaled to people around the world who are affected by this pandemic.”
Companies participating in the collaboration include:
- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company)
- bioMérieux
- Boehringer Ingelheim
- Bristol-Myers Squibb
- Eisai
- Eli Lilly
- Gilead
- GSK
- Johnson & Johnson
- Merck (known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada),
- Merck KGaA
- Novartis
- Pfizer
- Sanofi