The National Institutes of Health said April 17 it's launching a public-private partnership with 16 drugmakers to accelerate the development of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.
The partnership will be called "Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines," or ACTIV, and is intended to standardize research between federally funded researchers and the drug companies. The organization will prioritize research into drugs and vaccines that have high near-term potential, the NIH said.
ACTIV will give researchers access to high-level lab facilities, ensure researchers are judging potential drugs by the same criteria and establish a system to precisely coordinate clinical trials, according to STAT.
The 16 drug companies involved in ACTIV are: AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Evotec, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, KSQ Therapeutics, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi, Takeda and Vir Biotechnology.
Read the full news release here.