The companies under collaboration are working to identify concrete actions that will accelerate treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics to the field
Novartis headquarters. (Credit: Andrew/Wikipedia.)
Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis has partnered with a consortium of life sciences companies to speed-up the development, manufacture and delivery of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for Coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Companies including BD, bioMérieux, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Gilead, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sanofi have participated in the collaboration.
The companies under collaboration are working to identify concrete actions that will accelerate treatments, vaccines, and diagnostics to the field, following a conference call with Gates Foundation leadership earlier this month.
Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan 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.”
The collaboration covers drugs, diagnostic tests, compounds, and investigational vaccines for COVID-19
The company said that the industry offers a portfolio of assets, resources, and expertise required for to identification and development of solutions addressing the pandemic.
Also, the effective response to the viral epidemic needs a unique collaboration encompassing government, academia, private sector and philanthropy.
The trials of existing drugs, diagnostic tests, compounds, and investigational vaccines have been initiated to identify interventions to slow or end the pandemic. The products effective against the virus need clinical study, manufacture scale-up, and distribution.
Besides, the companies have agreed to share their libraries of molecular compounds that act against the COVID-19, as a first step of the ‘Therapeutics Accelerator’ launched by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard two weeks ago.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation chief executive officer Mark Suzman said: “We look to harness that knowledge and experience, combine it where possible, to connect with national regulators and the World Health Organization to see if we can help flatten the curve of this pandemic and make sure the results reach everyone around the world, particularly those at highest risk and the poorest.
“While each of the partners will also be pursuing other efforts in partnership with national governments and other partners, it is a great example of why we are optimistic that this unprecedented collaboration will provide a platform for a fundamentally different kind of partnership to help address this global health emergency.”