Treasury and Federal Reserve Board Announce New and Expanded Lending Programs to Provide up to $2.3 Trillion in Financing

WASHINGTON – Pursuant to section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin today approved the establishment of a Main Street Business Lending Program and a Municipal Liquidity Facility to support the flow of credit to American workers, businesses, States, counties, and cities impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Small and medium-sized businesses, through no fault of their own, have faced severe financial strain from widespread closures and liquidity pressures in the financial system. Using funds appropriated under the CARES Act, Treasury will make a $75 billion equity investment in a special purpose vehicle established to implement the Main Street Business Lending Program. This investment will enable up to $600 billion in new financing for businesses with up to 10,000 employees or $2.5 billion in 2019 annual revenues.Continue reading

Pfizer and BioNTech Announce Further Details on Collaboration to Accelerate Glogal COVID-19 Vaccine Development

  • Pfizer and BioNTech to jointly develop COVID-19 vaccine, initially in the United States and Europe, and scale-up manufacturing capacity to support global supply
  • Potential to supply millions of vaccine doses by the end of 2020 subject to technical success of the development program and approval by regulatory authorities, and then rapidly scale up capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses in 2021
  • BioNTech will contribute multiple mRNA vaccine candidates as part of its BNT162 COVID-19 vaccine program, which are expected to enter human testing in April 2020
  • Pfizer will contribute its leading global vaccine clinical research and development, regulatory, manufacturing and distribution infrastructure and capabilities
  • BioNTech will receive an upfront payment of $185 million, including an equity investment of approximately $113 million, and be eligible to receive future milestone payments of up to $563 million for a potential total consideration of $748 million

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Pfizer Advances Battle Against COVID-19 on Multiple Fronts

    • Anti-viral compounds show activity against SARS-CoV-2 in preclinical screening
    • Pfizer and BioNTech enter into collaboration agreement to co-develop potential COVID-19 vaccine Company shares additional data and analysis of azithromycin
    • Launch of two new studies to provide insights on the interaction between S. pneumoniae and SARS-CoV-2
    • Pfizer explores studies of JAK inhibitor tofacitinib in patients with COVID-19-related pneumonia

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Kauffman Fellows and Venture Capitalists “Meet” to Discuss COVID-19 Impacts

Over 250 Kauffman Fellows and VCs from all continents held a two day Zoom Conference last week to examine the effect of COVID on investment practices.  The Kauffman Fellows Program is a network of over 500 VCs and entrepreneurs.  Our Dr. Patricia Beckmann, a Kauffman Fellow, participated in the brainstorming session to encourage sharing and best practices. Continue reading

Flinn Biopreneur Spotlight: Humabiologics

Humabiologics, a regenerative medicine startup company founded by scientists and tissue industry experts to address the gap between the gift of donated human tissues and researchers is a member of the 2020 Flinn Foundation Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program co-hort and now part of a statewide community of Flinn Biopreneurs.Continue reading

Pregnancy During the Coronavirus Outbreak: What You Need to Know

There is a lot of anxiety as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread across the globe, especially for parents-to-be who are concerned about how the virus will impact their pregnancy. Jordan Perlow, MD, a clinical professor in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, discusses what pregnant women need to know about the virus. Continue reading