from the Deloitte report Illumina was founded in 1998, borne from the discovery of Bead Array technology at Tufts University. The company quickly raised initial funding of £5.4 million and used this to develop core technology and an intellectual property portfolio. Illumina negotiated an exclusive license for its Bead Array technology and completed its initial public offering just two years later in 2000. In 2001, the company began offering genotyping services and consistently developed new services and benchtop systems. It conducted some strategic acquisitions and focused on commercialising an expanding product portfolio. However, until the acquisition of Solexa, a UK-based genomic-scale sequencing technology, Illumina did not have the complete tool set for genomic analysis. The acquisition in 2006 saw revenues double. [FROM THE UK GOV Report] Genomics in practice: Illumina Accelerator Illumina recently announced the expansion of its Accelerator to Cambridge. Founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2014, the Illumina Accelerator focuses on partnering with entrepreneurs to build breakthrough genomics start-ups. During each 6-month funding cycle, the Illumina Accelerator will provide selected start-ups with access to seed investment, access to Illumina sequencing systems and reagents, as well as business guidance, genomics expertise, and fully operational lab space adjacent to Illumina's campus in Cambridge. Since launching in 2014, Illumina Accelerator has invested in 33 genomics start-ups from across the globe, which have collectively raised over $300 million in venture capital funding. see also Illumina.com

About Emergent BioSolutions Inc. Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of immunobiotics, such as vaccines and therapeutics that induce or assist the body's immune system to prevent or treat disease. The company's biodefense business is focused on developing and commercializing immunobiotics for use against biological agents that are potential weapons of bioterrorism. The company's commercial business is focused on developing immunobiotics for use against infectious diseases which pose significant unmet or underserved public health needs. More information on the company is available at www.emergentbiosolutions.com. source

Emergent BioSolutions ties up with Coley for VaxImmune vaccine 2007 The agreement allows the company to build on promising data from a phase I clinical study funded by the defense advanced research projects agency (DARPA) of the DoD. This double-blind phase I clinical trial was designed to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of a combined product candidate using BioThrax and VaxImmune compared to BioThrax alone and VaxImmune alone. This human trial, developed through collaboration among DARPA, Coley and Emergent BioSolutions, and completed in 2005, involved 69 healthy volunteers and used a three-dose regimen and intramuscular route of administration. source Emergent BioSolutions Signs Contract with BARDA/NIAID, Valued at Up to $29.7 Million, to Fund Development of AV7909 - A Next Generation Anthrax Vaccine source

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Dr. Peter Daszak is President of EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based organization that conducts research and outreach programs on global health, conservation and international development. Dr. Daszak’s research has been instrumental in identifying and predicting the origins and impact of emerging diseases across the globe. This includes identifying the bat origin of SARS, the drivers of Nipah virus emergence, publishing the first global emerging disease ‘hotspots’ map, discovering SADS coronavirus, designing a strategy to identify the number of unknown viruses in wildlife, launching the Global Virome Project, identifying the first case of a species extinction due to disease, and discovering the disease chytridiomycosis as the cause global amphibian declines. He is one of the founders of the field of Conservation Medicine and has been instrumental in the growth of EcoHealth, One Health, and now Planetary Health. A fundamental part of the Dr. Daszak’s work on disease ecology is directed by the conviction that disease outbreaks are not just predictable, but preventable. This approach is informed by a perspective on emerging infectious disease research that sees problems of human and animal disease as intimately linked – exacerbated by ecological change. With this in mind, he led the researcher that produced the first ever global emerging disease ‘hotspots’ map to determine where in the world viruses with pandemic potential are most likely to emerge, and developed a strategy to identify just how many of those viruses currently exist. Eco Health Alliance [left]WHO Expert Peter Daszak Boasts About Manipulation Of Killer SARs Like Virus In Wuhan | India First

To be strictly fair to the media, Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance obscures its Pentagon funding. On its website EcoHealth Alliance states that “A copy of the EHA Grant Management Manual is available upon request to the EHA Chief Financial Officer at finance ( at ) ecohealthalliance.org”. But an email to that address and numerous others, including Peter Daszak’s, requesting that Manual, as well as other financial information, was not returned. Neither were repeated voicemails. Only buried under their “Privacy Policy,” under a section titled “EcoHealth Alliance Policy Regarding Conflict of Interest in Research,” does the EcoHealth Alliance concede it is the “recipient of various grant awards from federal agencies including the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense.” Even this listing is deceptive. It obscures that its two largest funders are the Pentagon and the State Department (USAID); whereas the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which accounts for a minuscule $74,487, comes before either. Meticulous investigation of U.S. government databases reveals that Pentagon funding for the EcoHealth Alliance from 2013 to 2020, including contracts, grants and subcontracts, was just under $39 million. Most, $34.6 million, was from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which is a branch of the DOD which states it is tasked to “counter and deter weapons of mass destruction and improvised threat networks.” Most of the remaining money to EHA was from USAID (State Dept.), comprising at least $64,700,000 (1). These two sources thus total over $103 million. Summary of EHA Grants and Contracts. Note this figure doesn’t count subcontracts so it undercounts USAID’s contribution, see footnote (1) below (Credit: James Baratta and Mariamne Everett) Another $20 million came from Health and Human Services ($13 million, which includes National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control), National Science Foundation ($2.6 million), Department of Homeland Security ($2.3 million), Department of Commerce ($1.2 million), Department of Agriculture ($0.6 million), and Department of Interior ($0.3 million). So, total U.S. government funding for EHA to-date stands at $123 million, approximately one third of which comes from the Pentagon directly. The full funding breakdown is available here and is summarized by year, source, and type, in a spreadsheet format. The military links of the EcoHealth Alliance are not limited to money and mindset. One noteworthy ‘policy advisor’ to the EcoHealth Alliance is David Franz. Franz is former commander of Fort Detrick, which is the principal U.S. government biowarfare/biodefense facility.

David Franz was part of UNSCOM which inspected Iraq for alleged bioweapons — what were constantly referred to as WMDs or Weapons of Mass Destruction by the U.S. government and the media. Franz has been one of those eager to state, at least when discussing alleged Iraqi programs, that “in biology … everything is dual use — the people, the facilities and the equipment.” (NPR, May 14, 2003; link no longer available). Just this year Franz wrote a piece with former New York Times journalist Judith Miller, whose stories of Iraqi WMDs did much to misinform the US public regarding the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Their joint article, “A Biosecurity Failure: America’s key lab for fighting infectious disease has become a Pentagon backwater,” urges more funding for Fort Detrick. Miller and Franz are long-time associates. Miller co-wrote the book Germs, released amid the 2001 false flag anthrax attacks, which repeatedly quotes Franz. Miller at the time received a hoax letter with a harmless white powder, increasing her prominence. Franz continued hyping the existence of Iraqi WMDs even after the invasion of Iraq. While she was still with the Times, Miller quoted him in a story “U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs To Germ Arms” on May 21, 2003 pushing the theory that Iraq had mobile biological WMD units. (This theory was debunked by the British scientist Dr David Kelly, who would die, apparently by suicide, soon thereafter.) Independent science news

Four significant insights emerge from all this. First, although it is called the EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak and his non-profit work closely with the military. Second, the EcoHealth Alliance attempts to conceal these military connections. Third, through militaristic language and analogies Daszak and his colleagues promote what is often referred to as, and even then somewhat euphemistically, an ongoing agenda known as “securitization“. In this case it is the securitization of infectious diseases and of global public health. That is, they argue that pandemics constitute a vast and existential threat. They minimize the very real risks associated with their work, and sell it as a billion dollar solution. The fourth insight is that Daszak himself, as the Godfather of the Global Virome Project, stands to benefit from the likely outlay of public funds.

A sensor injected under the skin, backed by DARPA, is meant to spot COVID-19 days before symptoms appear "These sensors make it possible to detect, in 'real time' and over long periods of time, changes in the body's chemistry," Jared Adams, chief of communications for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), The sensor is made up of two parts: a small strip of hydrogel injected under the skin. The strip is tiny, about a 10th of an inch in length. (Hydrogel is same type of material that is used in soft contact lenses.) Then, outside the skin, there is the detector. The gel is infused with chemicals. Early markers of infection, such as an abrupt change in oxygen levels, trigger a chemical reaction. The strip starts to glow with fluorescent light, which can be picked up by the detector. Yahoo The project has now been passed on from DARPA to the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense

How the U.S. government bolstered Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate By Brian Buntz | November 23, 2020 Until recently, the most rapidly developed vaccine was for mumps, which took four years. Now, Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) appear to be on the cusp of commercializing COVID-19 vaccines under emergency use authorization. It was only a year ago that physicians in China identified unusual pneumonia cases that would later be associated with the novel coronavirus. As impressive as the rapid pace of COVID-19 vaccine development has been, researchers have drawn on foundational work that stretches back almost two decades, said Barry Bloom, a research professor at Harvard University, in the recent webinar titled the “Race for the COVID-19 Vaccine: Latest Updates.” And the Moderna vaccine candidate, in particular, has benefited from U.S. government support. A marathon as well as a sprint The race to develop COVID vaccines has roots stretching back to the terrorist attacks on September 11 and the anthrax attacks that followed in the subsequent weeks. The events led the National Academy of Sciences to convene a set of committees to examine the twin threats of terrorism and pandemics. The committees “concluded that we were enormously vulnerable and we had to do a lot of different things [to] protect the country,” said Bloom, who co-chaired a bioterrorism panel for the National Academy of Sciences at the time. In 2002, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) first appeared in China and took hold internationally within months. Effective public health interventions prevented SARS from becoming a pandemic. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established the National Pandemic Influenza Plan to provide a blueprint for pandemic response. “At some point in our nation’s future, another virus will emerge with the potential to create a global disease outbreak,” Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt at the time. The pandemic plan stressed the importance of antiviral drugs and vaccines. “It is a wonderful plan,” Bloom noted. But before COVID-19 hit, the report had “disappeared in a drawer somewhere in Washington,” he added. But the U.S. government’s focus on vaccines to combat pandemics likely played a role in spurring further research into novel vaccine platforms.

DARPA and BARDA make vaccine investments Government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) would play a role in vaccine development. DARPA “invests in very long term science and technology [projects] that will pay off in 20 years,” Bloom said. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) developed a stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike immunogen (S-2P) that Moderna would later use in its messenger RNA platform. DARPA was instrumental in the development of RNA vaccines and provided $25 million in financial support to Moderna in 2013 to pursue messenger RNA–based antibody drugs and vaccines. DARPA announced it was committing up to $56 million in additional funding to Moderna this October. BARDA has committed another roughly $955 million to Moderna. In all, the U.S. government vaccine contract with Moderna is worth roughly $1.5 billion. BARDA has also invested in producers of other COVID-19 vaccines. BARDA was also instrumental in resetting researchers’ expectations for vaccine development, Bloom said. The organization set a goal of developing a vaccine 60 days after determining a pathogen’s DNA sequence. Moderna had a vaccine candidate 66 days after scientists identified its genetic sequence. “And that is a reflection of tremendous foresight by these technical agencies,” Bloom said. By identifying promising research and identifying companies to advance it, the government agencies have played a role in engineering COVID-19 vaccines. But the platform approach could also help fight future pandemics, given its ability to allow researchers to tweak antigens and genes to target a new pathogen. The U.S. government’s support of the vaccine platform led to investigations into its use to treat infections from Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), influenza, Zika and HIV. “We had a background on these vaccines,” Bloom said. “The companies were pretty confident they would work [for the novel coronavirus], but it will take [trials] to find out how safe and effective for COVID they really are.” Drug Discovery

Regina Dugan 'wants superpowers'

Who was the Angel Investor? - Who were the following Investors? When you start researching this you will come across DARPA, LIFElog, CIA. The Angel Investor for Facebook was Peter Theil. Nearly 5 Lakhs American Dollars was Invested by him in 2004. We should know about Peter Theil. But before that, we should know that When Project Lifelog was shut down, many authors gave their views. They were afraid that DARPA will never easily let go of one of their projects. Their Project will surface in another name. Peter Theil is a Co-founder of Palantir. It is a Data mining company. So Data Mining needs a lot of data. JP Morgans banks are many. JPMorgan employees were acting against their employer this was a doubt in the minds of the leaders of JP Morgan. So the Leaders of JP Morgan asked for help to a person. That Person was an Ex-CIA officer. His name is Peter Cavicchia. So Peter Cavicchia joins Palantir Technologies and recruits 125 data mining Engineers. Then he runs an algorithm in JP Morgan Chase &Co. After running the algorithm, every employee was given a Cell Phone. This all happened in 2008 to 2009. So the mail sends by any employee should get past the algorithm. The Palantir Algorithm will keep a close watch on the data from the employee’s mobiles. So the Algorithm which was created by Palantir Technologies which was Co-Founded by Peter Theil was the Angel Investor for Facebook. Now you could have understood the Importance of Data Mining. SO Govt Organizations like CIA and DARPA need a lot of data. When People started to protest against Project Lifelog, They just changed the name into Facebook. Peter Theil had 10.5% Shares invested in Facebook is the truth which came out in 2004. The Next Investment for facebook came from Accel Partners. We should know about Jim Breyer who is the CEO of Breyer Capital. Do you know his friends? Jim Breyer and his friends are major names in a Not For Profit Venture Capital called In-Q-Tel. In-Q-Tel was created by the CIA in 1999.

What is the purpose? This firm monitors the American People’s thoughts, Will they protect against the govt? What are the people doing? How to change the people’s thoughts into positive towards the govt? This is the primary objective of the organization called IN-Q-Tel. Jim Breyer is closely connected to In-Q-Tel. Jim Breyer invests heavily in Facebook. So the American Govt started an Organization called In-Q-tel and a project called Lifelog. But people started to protest against both. To counter this they introduce Social Media called Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg maybe the CEO of Facebook. Who are the investors in Facebook now? What happens to the data in Facebook? These are all big unanswered questions. They are already doing data mining. Coming days without data mining nothing will work. If you want to sell your product online you need data mining. If someone wants to know your suggestions on Politics or any other thing, they need data. This data is needed by Govts, Private Sectors, Banks,. They need your data. You should also now Facebook has all your data. Let’s discuss the Prism Program. Your Social media, Facebook, Google and everything comes under the Project called PRISM. This information is Officially released by the American govt. So we have discussed Prism, In-Q-Tel, Lifelog Project hiding all in its shadows in Facebook. What did Facebook do next? Facebook has now obtained the data. With the current data, they can create Hardware such as Robotics, Superhumans, or maybe Hacking the human brain. Is Facebook researching it or not? The answer to this question comes in 2014-15. An Important person speaks in an Important Facebook Event called F8. Her name is Regina Dugan. Regina Dugan once worked for DARPA in a very Higher Position. Regina Dugan comes to work with Facebook. Her project is called Building Eight. So she works for Facebook under the Project called building Eight. She says that they are developing a machine with interconnects a Machine and a Human. She asks for the people’s support. Building eight project is Developing the Hardware using the data obtained from Facebook. But Suddenly without any announcement, the Project was shutdown. What could be the reason? When we go in search of this project. There are so many facts and truth are available. Is there any more information? Did Mark Zuckerberg, Lady Gaga, and Google Co-Founder have a meeting somewhere? Does anyone know about this meeting? From Tamil Pokkishams blog web cached

The Wellcome Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute is one of the premier centres of genomic discovery and understanding in the world. It leads ambitious collaborations across the globe to provide the foundations for further research and transformative healthcare innovations. The Sanger Institute was established in 1993 and sequenced one third of the first human genome in the global Human Genome Project, the single largest contributor and over the last 25 years has pioneered multiple large-scale global projects. It is located at the Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK and its success is founded on the expertise and knowledge of its people. The Institute seeks to share openly its discoveries and techniques with the next generation of genomics scientists and researchers worldwide. The Institute has pioneered responsible clinical genomic data sharing initiatives, such as DECIPHER, which are used daily in clinical genomic testing around the world. The Institute has also catalysed genomic medicine through landmark translational research projects such as the DDD and PAGE studies, which were co-funded by DHSC and laid the foundations for the 100,000 Genomes Project. from the UK Gov report - The future of Healthcare

Watch as Regina Dugan talks of the 1st 1000 days health monitoring infants from birth - promoting tools for nutrition & brain development.

In this episode of Harman’s interview series “The Next Wave,” Young Sohn talks with Dr. Regina Dugan on innovation, leadership, and making a lasting impact. Regina has led diverse efforts that have ranged from key defense and industry projects as the first female director of DARPA, including her early involvement in the technologies behind the present-day mRNA Covid-19 vaccines, and at a very personal level, her battle with childhood cancer that shaped her approach to life and leadership, including her decision to accept the role of CEO of Wellcome Leap, an organization devoted to creating more breakthroughs in human health. Wellcome Leap is targeting a host of complex human health challenges with the goal of achieving new scientific and technological solutions in the span of a decade. Wellcome Leap is powering innovations for global health by taking on bold, unconventional programs and funding them at scale. One of Leap’s new programs is called the First 1000 Days. Its premise is that we need objective, scalable ways to assess a child’s? cognitive health, especially during the first 1000 days of life—just as we routinely measure height and weight to assess a child’s physical health. - The Next Wave

galtoninstitute.org.uk

Wellcome Leap - Biotech Wellcome Leap nabs $300M, ex-DARPA, Illumina execs to battle global health problems The U.K.'s Wellcome Trust has spun out a new nonprofit with a hefty seed fund and some big names to battle against the most pressing global health challenges of our time. It starts life with $300 million in funding with former U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Director Regina Dugan coming on board as its lead and former Illumina CEO Jay Flatley talking the chairman's role. Leap will undertake bold, unconventional programs and fund them at scale," it says in a statement, and comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which it says has and should change the way we think about how to tackle healthcare issues, and what should be prioritized. Two years in the making, Leap will recruit program directors to build and work on programs that identify opportunities and gaps, and plug those gaps with science and engineering from diverse disciplines. It will bring together and stump up cash for teams of scientists and engineers drawn from universities, nonprofits, and the commercial sector. Operations at Leap will use accelerated timelines beginning with abstract and proposal evaluations that take weeks rather than months, it said. Leap is not, however, in the business of building permanent labs, and program directors will be appointed for specific, discrete, time-bound projects, and isn't looking to take a cut of sales from any therapies it makes. CEO Dugan said: The global pandemic is our generation's Sputnik. It is calling on us to respond urgently'”now'”and also to create new capabilities for the future. We need new, risk-tolerant innovation organizations to drive health advances at the pace the world needs them, not only for the current crisis, but for the most pressing global health challenges of our time. I am excited to lead Leap. In the fight against COVID-19, scientific organizations are dispensing with old conventions and assumptions to stretch the limit of what's possible. The world needs an entity dedicated to operating that way at all times, added Flatley. Leap will pursue the most challenging projects that would not otherwise be attempted or funded. The unique operating model provides the potential to make impactful, rapid advances on the future of health. The new organization will be independent from Wellcome and governed autonomously to encourage speed, agility, and an appetite for risk-taking, the new group said. fierce Biotech wellcome Leap.org

Microsoft, Google invest in genomics platform firm DNAnexus by Angus Liu | Jan 3, 2018 9:15am DNA Foresite Capital, Microsoft, GV and others invested $58 million in genomics firm DNAnexus. Biopharma companies, medical research institutions and healthcare facilities have growing interest in getting more genomics data, and that has translated into new investments. A $58 million financing round DNAnexus completed is just one recent example. The round was led by healthcare-focused investment firm Foresite Capital, with strategic investment from Microsoft. Alphabet's investment arm GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Wuxi AppTec's genomics subsidiary WuXi NextCODE are among existing investors that also participated. The California company's cloud-based platform enables sharing, management and analysis of huge volumes of genomic data to help researchers collaborate on R&D projects. As the volume of biomedical information continues to increase, the DNAnexus platform and upcoming product releases catalyze collaboration, data sharing and machine learning on which the development of precision medicine depends, Foresite founder and CEO Jim Tananbaum said in a statement. To DNAnexus CEO Richard Daly, such cross-institutional collaborations are crucial in creating multi-omics data that aid biomedical insights. The $58 million'”a large infusion compared with the $15 million it raised back in 2014 and another $15 million it got from WuXi in 2015'”will be used on further development and launch of its translational medicine solutions, as well as expanding the reach of its platform in clinical trials, said Daly. DNAnexus has made quite a few high-profile expansions in the drug R&D market in 2017. Its platform was chosen by AstraZeneca's Centre for Genomics Research, a project launched in 2016 through a partnership with Craig Venter's Human Longevity, to analyze over two million genomes in a decade to inform drug discovery and development. In June, it launched a new microbiome platform called Mosaic in collaboration with Janssen Research & Development. The idea is quite the same, that scientists could store and manage microbiome data securely and collaborate easily. A few weeks ago, DNAnexus started incorporating Google's new DeepVariant bioinformatics technology on its platform. The Google-developed tool uses deep learning to call genetic variants from next-generation sequencing data. DeepVariant is one of the first tools to deliver on that promise by making the critical first step to more accurately identify genetic differences among individuals, Vik Bajaj, Foresite's managing director and former CSO at Verily Life Sciences, said in a statement back then. By making a reference implementation broadly accessible, I believe Google and DNAnexus will accelerate a growing body of research that requires high-quality genomic information" Fierce Biotech RELATED: AstraZeneca teams with Venter to mine genomes for R&D insights

AZ was part of huge chemical company - ICI IMPERIAL In 1993 the British chemicals company ICI demerged its pharmaceuticals / agrochemicals and specialities businesses, to form Zeneca Group PLC. 1999 Astra and Zeneca Group merged into AstraZeneca plc, with its headquarters in London. wikipedia

22 April 2016 AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm, MedImmune, today announced an integrated genomics initiative to transform drug discovery and development across its entire research and development pipeline. The initiative includes new collaborations with Human Longevity, Inc., US; the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK, and The Institute for Molecular Medicine, Finland. AstraZeneca will also establish an in-house Centre for Genomics Research which will develop a bespoke database comprising genome sequences from samples donated by patients in its clinical trials together with associated clinical and drug response data. AstraZeneca believes that embedding genomics across its research and development platforms will: deliver novel insights into the biology of diseases; enable the identification of new targets for medicines; support selection of patients for clinical trials; allow patients to be matched with treatments more likely to benefit them.

Menelas Pangalos, Executive Vice President, Innovative Medicines & Early Development at AstraZeneca said: Using the power of genomics is the foundation of our ambition to develop the most innovative and impactful treatments for patients. With the advent of next generation sequencing and the increased sophistication of data analysis, the time is now right to immerse ourselves fully in the international genomics community through these pioneering collaborations and through the creation of our own genome centre. We will leverage information from up to 2 million genome sequences, including over 500,000 from our own clinical trials, to drive drug discovery and development across all our therapeutic areas. Genomics will be fundamental to our laboratory research, our clinical trials and the launch of our medicines for patients. Human Longevity, Inc, US. AstraZeneca aims to share up to 500,000 DNA samples with Human Longevity, Inc, from which Human Longevity will sequence full genomes and deploy its state-of-the-art machine learning, pattern recognition and other analytical techniques. These genomic samples will include those donated by patients under optional informed consent in AstraZeneca's clinical trials. AstraZeneca will also gain access to Human Longevity's unique database of up to 1 million integrated genomic and health records to add to its analysis. AstraZeneca's Centre for Genomics Research AstraZeneca is creating an in-house Centre for Genomics Research focused on the creation and use of a bespoke database of genome sequences from samples donated by patients in its clinical trials over the past 15 and over the next 10 years, integrated with associated clinical and drug response data. In addition, the Centre will access up to 500,000 genomes available through AstraZeneca's collaborations and from the public domain. The Centre will be located in AstraZeneca's corporate headquarters in Cambridge and work closely with the international genomics community to derive broad scientific and clinical benefit from these unprecedented genomic resources. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK AstraZeneca will establish a research team led by a genomics expert of international reputation, embedded within The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute's world-renowned Genome Centre in Cambridge, UK. AstraZeneca will share genomic samples and associated clinical data, plus its drug development expertise across core therapy areas. The two parties will identify new targets and biomarkers with potential use in diagnostic tests. The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, Finland AstraZeneca will collaborate with The Institute for Molecular Medicine, Finland and its partners in Finland and the US, to study genes of interest in the Finnish population, which is known to carry a higher than normal frequency of rare variants. Additionally, Finland has an integrated health record system supported by a national biobanking law that facilitates recall of volunteers for thorough clinical evaluation. Bahija Jallal, Executive Vice President, MedImmune, said: The fields of genetics and genomics evolve so rapidly that no single company can internalise this type of research and do it all themselves. We are acutely aware of this, which is why we have chosen to work with the genomics community to leverage external expertise in genomic analyses and the design of large-scale genetic studies. Together, with the rich clinical data from our biobank, we will translate these findings into better understanding of disease and ultimately, more effective treatments for patients. In line with AstraZeneca's open innovation approach to research and development, research findings from all collaborations across its genomic platform will be published in peer-reviewed journals, contributing to the broader scientific understanding of the genetic influence of disease and positioning AstraZeneca as a key player in the global genomics research community. www.astrazeneca.com Press release

Multiple countries have paused the use of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigators look into cases of blood clots among vaccinated people. Austrian authorities said March 7 that a 49-year-old woman had died as a result of severe coagulation disorder after taking the shot, and that a 35-year-old had developed blood clots in the lungs, but was recovering. Both had received vaccines from the same batch, the authorities said. Business Insider

Sarah Gilbert & Vaccitech a co-founder of the University's Oxford spin in-out company Vaccitech, which is developing novel vaccines using the non-replicating viral vectors Chimpanzee Adenovirus Oxford (ChAdOx) and Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA). The Jenner Institute note Pirbright logo Porton Down corporate shoot offs... include QinetiQ PORTON DOWN IS OF ROYAL [IMPERIAL] ASSENT

Vaccitech The platform was licensed from the prestigious Jenner Institute for vaccine research at the University of Oxford, which dedicated over 20 years of research to identify and refine the optimal method for CD8+ T cell induction in humans. This platform has generated a robust, largely immunotherapeutic pipeline of six clinical product candidates for infectious disease and cancer indications, four of which are in co-development with partners and external funding. Vaccitech is backed by leading investment institutions, including M&G, Tencent, Gilead Sciences, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital China, Liontrust (formerly Neptune), Korea Investment Partners and Oxford Sciences Innovation. Vaccitech