Life sciences companies band together to accelerate Covid-19 products

A consortium of life science companies co-led by Novartis are collaborating to accelerate the development, manufacture and delivery of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for Covid-19.

The collaboration follows a conference call with the Gates Foundation earlier in March after which 15 companies agreed to share their proprietary libraries of molecular compounds with the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.

Companies involved in the collaboration include: BD, Boehringer Ingelheim, bioMerieux, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Gilead, GSK, J&J, Merck (MSD), Merck (Merck KGaA), Novartis, Pfizer and Sanofi. 

The consortium’s co-chair, Vas Narasimhan, CEO 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.”

With trials of existing drugs, diagnostic tests, compounds, and investigational vaccines beginning around the world, the consortium hopes to help scale up any product that is proven to be effective against Covid-19.

Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said, “We know that the private sector is where the technical skills from discovery to clinical trials to commercialisation know-how sits. We look to harness that knowledge and experience, combine it where possible, to connect with national regulators and the World Health Organisation 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.”

 “This is an encouraging start in a critical area because if any of these compounds are shown to be effective against Covid-19 it dramatically accelerates the path to product approval and scale up,” said Suzman. “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.”