The U.S. is now confronting what public health experts have been warning about but many in the public had not absorbed: the coronavirus pandemic will be with us for many months, and lapses in vigilance will lead to more sickness and death.

The country as a whole is tacking on about 20,000 new Covid-19 cases to its 2.1 million infection tally each day, a clip that’s been steady for weeks, according to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker.

Whether in the fall or further down the line, institutions that sent students home as the pandemic encroached will welcome them back. This Chronicle series examines the complex practicalities, risks, and trade-offs of that unpredecented process. How would residence halls, dining facilities, and classrooms be used in a way that adheres to public-health guidance? After a spring of separation and, in some cases, trauma, what will students need and how should colleges respond? And what kind of liability issues might colleges face in the event of an outbreak?

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Even though many public policy efforts on entrepreneurship are well intentioned, the success rate has been disappointing. This essay explores these policies, focusing on financial incentives to entrepreneurs and the intermediaries who fund them.

Royalty Pharma, a business built on investing in other people’s medicines, raised $2.2 billion in a record IPO on Tuesday, and the early hours of trading boosted its valuation to more than $25 billion.

The company, founded in 1996, priced about 78 million shares at $28 each. Royalty Pharma opened trading at $44, an instant 57% increase, suggesting the company’s bankers left a fair amount of money on the table.

Having experienced the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s while living in Hong Kong prepared Lori Ryerkerk to some degree for the COVID-19 pandemic. Ryerkerk, who is chairman, president and CEO of Celanese, a global producer of chemicals and specialty materials, says that because we can’t anticipate what the next crisis will be, it’s always critical to build an organization that is “resilient and robust.” But one thing the current pandemic has taught her is that “no amount of communication is too much” – and that the more inclusive that communication is across a company, the stronger the company will be.

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The fallout from the pandemic has created new opportunities that organic growth leaders are best able to capture. By investing more in their pool of innovation talent, giving these people the latitude to seize these opportunities, and encouraging prudent risks, these growth leaders will extend their lead further, write Wharton’s George S. Day and Gregory P. Shea in this opinion piece. Day, an emeritus professor of marketing, and Shea, an adjunct professor of management, base these recommendations on their research into what sets growth leaders apart from their slower-moving rivals.

The world’s retailers face a host of challenges. Even before the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar retailers were struggling. Now, as we emerge from the liminal space of nationwide lockdowns into new psychological and social territory, shoppers will be anxious about whether visiting stores will increase their exposure to the virus. Adding to the complexity: The United States is now officially in a recession, which will dampen consumer spending for months to come.

Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim is to make a bank of its molecules available to scientists in a bid to encourage open innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many scientists are working from home. 

The family-owned company has dubbed its new crowdsourcing platform opnMe, and aims to set new standards of collaboration within the scientific community. 

By improving cooperation and collaboration, Boehringer aims to accelerate research projects and improve knowledge about diseases for which there are few available treatments. 

Image: https://pharmaphorum.com

When it comes into effect, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) is set to create one of the world’s largest markets with 1.2-billion consumers and a total gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.5-trillion.

It is an entrepreneur’s dream and provides an opportunity for the new crop of African businesses to deliver their solutions to a continental market.

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You may have conducted hundreds of performance reviews over the course of your career, but in the era of Covid-19 everything is different. You and your team have been working remotely for months now in an extremely difficult situation. How do you begin to evaluate your employees’ performance at such a challenging time? How much should you consider the impact of Covid-19 on your assessment? And how do you make sure you’re fair-minded given everyone’s different circumstances?

Emergencies naturally draw our attention — and our resources — to the present. The U.S. response to Covid-19 is no exception. Yet the problems exposed by the pandemic point to the urgent need to prepare now for the next waves of this crisis, including new clusters of infection and new crises of debt and scarcity. They also highlight the opportunity to develop a more resilient health system for the future. Employers can and should play a central role in this effort.

George Mason University on Monday announced three development and property management firms as finalists to build and operate its proposed $250 million Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA), set to open in September 2025 on its Arlington campus. The university released a request for proposals in February, to which 105 developers responded.

Image: Concept rendering of George Mason University's Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) in Arlington

As reports emerge of a new COVID-19 outbreak at a Beijing market, the vigor of the public health response from Chinese officials is only surpassed by the severity of their language.

Since 106 new cases emerged around the Xinfadi wholesale food market in Beijing’s southwestern Fengtai district—following 56 days without any new infections—the Chinese capital has been plunged into what officials are calling “wartime mode.” Some 100,000 epidemic control workers have been deployed, at least 29 local communities placed under lockdown, schools and sports facilities shuttered, and various officials sacked.

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The FDA today repealed the emergency use authorization (EUA) it granted in March to anti-malarial drugs chloroquine phosphate and its less toxic metabolite hydroxychloroquine sulfate as treatments for COVID-19, citing a lack of consistent replication of  arlier promising results and a randomized controlled clinical trial that showed no clinical benefit for hydroxychloroquine.

Hydroxychloroquine in particular became a household word in the weeks since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, after President Donald Trump first advocated its use in combination with azithromycin—“What do you have to lose?” he exclaimed during the April 4 Coronavirus Task Force Briefing. Last month, he disclosed that he had taken the drug to protect from infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Image: The FDA has repealed the emergency use authorization (EUA) it granted in March to anti-malarial drugs chloroquine phosphate and its less toxic metabolite hydroxychloroquine sulfate as treatments for COVID-19, citing a lack of consistent replication of earlier promising results and a randomized controlled clinical trial that showed no clinical benefit for hydroxychloroquine. (NIAID)

Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has struck a deal with Europe’s Inclusive Vaccines Alliance to supply up to 400 million doses of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine, as efforts to boost manufacturing capacity continue at pace.

The alliance, which was forged by Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands to speed up production of a vaccine, is set to take delivery of the material being tested by the University of Oxford by the end of 2020.

Venture capital’s longtime leading lobbyist group has launched a new non-profit to support diversity and education efforts free of its policy ties.

The National Venture Capital Association announced on Tuesday that it had launched Venture Forward, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with close links to the NVCA but a separate board of directors. Venture Forward has raised $5.5 million from more than 60 donors so far led by Silicon Valley Bank, says executive director Maryam Haque.

Image: Maryam Haque, executive director of Venture Forward, hopes to provide resources to the VC industry as it works to improve its diversity, equity and inclusion and education of new investors and fund managers. - VENTURE FORWARD

Open innovation is the future of innovation. Not everybody can do all the innovation themselves, and partnership helps in this regard. - Madhurima Agarwal, NetApp

Learning is a way of life and never leaves us. Our brain is reshaping with every single thought we have. - Dinesh Bbhasin, ‘bread n butter’

Risk is best understood as a combination of two factors - how reversible is the decision and how controllable is the outcome. - Shripati Acharya, Prime Venture Partners

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Organisational politics is ubiquitous. If you think your workplace is without politics, then perhaps you have been blindsided. Everyone has different goals and motives, and alignment is rarely a given. In fact, one may have goals that may not be aligned with the organisation’s. Thus, leaders must learn the appropriate political skills to rally supporters and persuade resisters to “get things done”. More critically, as one ascends the organisational hierarchy, the politics gets messier as the stakes are higher. Perhaps fictional Frank Underwood was right to say: “For those of us climbing to the top of the food chain, there can be no mercy. There is but one rule: Hunt or be hunted.”

Until an effective vaccine is widely available, it is impossible for any college to be completely safe from Covid-19. Yet many institutions are planning to resume residential life in August. Much has been written about protecting students, but we also need to ask: If faculty members decide that it is too risky to return to campus, do they have the right to work from home?

Image: Illustration by James Yang for The Chronicle 

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited angel investors. They argue that the color of the money is the same from either source. They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup.

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