June 29, 2020
what we are reading...
empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines
Science
China just approved a COVID vaccine for military use, skipping over the Phase 3 testing. The vaccine was developed by CanSino Biologics and the Academy of Military Science, and had been effective in Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials.
Phase 3 is the step in drug testing where a large group of people (several thousands) receive the drug and others receive a placebo, and they are sent out in the world and studied to see if the drug causes any issues and if it actually works.
In theory, it appears as if the Chinese Military is being used as an approximate Phase 3 or as a bunch of involuntary testers.
Moderna, which has also developed a vaccine candidate, is expected to begin its Phase 3 trials next month with global testing of over 30,000 individuals. Moderna was also fast tracked as Phase 3 moves in parallel with ongoing clinical testing. AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s vaccine candidate is on a similar path.
Phase 3 trials usually last about 1-4 years, yet Dr. Fauci (US head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) expects a vaccine in 12-18 months, as doses of promising vaccines are already being produced for stockpiles.
Vaccines and viruses are a tricky business — vaccine candidates for SARS and Dengue fever backfired and actually made humans more susceptible to the diseases. Many pharma companies are also working on treatments rather than vaccines similar to the protocols developed for Ebola or HIV.
We are rooting for the scientists, but in the meantime, keep up the hand washing and the mask wearing.
Go Deeper:
Reuters on CanSino Biologics
Moderna Vaccine Trials
Business
Gig workers have traditionally had a hard time getting credit from banks, as their employment isn’t considered as stable as a W2 worker. Forget Uber drivers and TaskRabbit freelancers, banks have a had a hard time wrapping their heads around online influencing as a job.
Karat is a financial startup that provides credit to influencers based on their follower count rather than their credit score. Karat was started by alumni from Goldman Sachs and Instagram, and secured seed funding from Twitch’s co-founder.
This business credit card allows creators to fund their business expenses and receive customized perks. Online gamers and influencers often purchase high-end (and expensive) home studios, and traditional banks often weren’t willing to provide financing. Thus, entered Karat with a user experience that is catered to the online creative who might not have time to fax tax returns to a typical bank. Karat is effectively creating its own financial metric — reach and engagement — and its revenue is derived from merchant fees rather than interest.
What to watch: Fintech continues to innovate to serve new communities and the underbanked — offering installment or micro loans for e-commerce, using mobile as a payment platform or even gamifying investing. Brex, a fintech unicorn, is a similar business card started for startups that provides customized benefits, and like, Karat, users must pay their balance in full at the end of each month.
While several incumbent banks have joined forces or created their own Fintech arms to appeal to the online community, we expect to see more startups take a run at the large banks. Regulators will have to step up and educate themselves as a fiasco is just a simple app away— see Wirecard.
Innovation gone awry: When cryptocurrencies became all the rage, several companies decided to market their own coins in order to raise capital. These Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFTs) or Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) were marketed quite extensively across the start-up world in 2018. However, while the instruments were designed specifically not to be securities, the SEC had other plans.
Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, raised $1.7B in the largest coin offering in 2019. The offering had interest from many prominent Silicon Valley investors, but it was beset by technical and legal challenges. In the end, the SEC sued to block the transaction as unregistered securities. Telegram finally settled with the SEC and will notify the regulator if it plans any other digital currency offerings in the future.
Go Deeper:
Wired on Karat
Marketwatch on Telegram
Media
WFH has mostly put movie productions on hold. Jason Reitman, however, had other plans. He decided to put together an awkward remake of The Princess Bride by asking his celebrity friends to create footage from home.
Some of the original actors make cameos, and the cast also includes Josh Gad, Rob Reiner, Tiffany Haddish and Hugh Jackman. Throughout the chapters, different actors play the characters so the inconsistency may be funny or confusing. Like the first SNL from Home, we are not quite sure if this will work or just another excuse for bored celebrities to be on film.
Quibi is airing the installments and donating $1M to World Central Kitchen on behalf of the filmmakers and it launches today.
Definitely “inconceivable!”
Go Deeper:
Vanity Fair
Culture
If you are like us, WFH has made us a bit of a voyeur. We get to see into everyone’s homes — commentators, authors and celebrities — for better or worse. One of our favorite guilty pleasures is the Room Rater on Twitter (@ratemyskyperoom). The Rater has some specific preferences and tends to like plants and non-color coded bookcases, and since the account was started by a US PAC, they tend to throw in some political leanings with their ratings. Enjoy!
— Lauren Eve Cantor
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