How industry heavyweights are fighting in the match against COVID-19
Last month, we released a blog post sharing how our portfolio companies are supporting patients, providers, and researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic. These efforts have enabled leading enterprise organizations, like our corporate partners, to better fight the crisis on the frontlines. Rock Health’s corporate partners are industry leaders in the healthcare ecosystem and beyond—they represent the nation’s top health systems, local and national payers, global pharma organizations, and more. We are honored to partner with them every day as they advance the scalable adoption of innovative healthcare technologies, and particularly now, as they throw their energy and talents behind tackling the effects of COVID-19 head on.
Here’s how our corporate partners are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic doing what they do best and more:
Accenture built a COVID-19 rapid response frameworks to support health and life sciences organizations in overcoming a surge in demand and address challenges to their business operations and workforce. The rapid response frameworks help these organizations manage the challenges of this disruption and navigate the human and business impacts.
Banner Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, is battling COVID-19 on the frontlines in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Wyoming. If you’re interested in volunteering, or donating goods and supplies, please visit this page.
Blue Shield of California is partnering with corporations, startups, and government officials to create new solutions for the entire healthcare system. They’re teaming up with GYANT to create a COVID-19 screening tool for hospital partners and drive-thru testing sites—plus, BSCA is waiving COVID-19 testing and telehealth costs for members.
CareFirst is offering members experiencing economic hardships flexible payment options for premium payments. In addition to waiving cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing and treatment and forgoing prescription refill limits, CareFirst is encouraging the use of their telemedicine and virtual care platforms like CareFirst Video Visits.
The James M. Cox Foundation, the charitable arm of Cox Enterprises, is donating up to $5M to Emory Healthcare to purchase COVID-19 testing equipment and $100K to feed frontline healthcare workers in Atlanta. Cox Business is also working with various health systems around the country to improve their bandwidth in preparation for increased patient load.
CVS Health is waiving charges for prescription medication home delivery and supporting its Aetna members by waiving cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing, telemedicine visits, and in-patient hospital admissions. They are also putting more than $1M toward addressing food insecurity and other community needs in response to ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
GSK is enhancing COVID-19 vaccine development by working with WHO’s Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to make their pandemic vaccine adjuvant platform technology available to CEPI-funded entities.
LabCorp launched its internally-developed molecular test for COVID-19 in the U.S. on March 5 and is applying its expertise to support global clinical studies in antivirals, vaccines, and immune response modifying therapies. LabCorp is also collaborating with Ciox to develop a patient data registry to help expedite COVID-19 clinical research and analyses, and working with PacBio to uncover viral genomic insights for the development of vaccines, treatments, and new tests.
Leidos careC2 is launching careC2 Compass, a virtual command center helping health care providers effectively plan and use community resources to mitigate shortages and mobilize effective responses. They’re also releasing careC2 Aeon, an application enabling at-risk individuals to limit their exposure to COVID-19 by connecting them to goods and services, such as home delivery of food and medicine.
Pfizer is partnering with BioNTech to co-develop and distribute a potential mRNA-based COVID-19 virus vaccine aimed at preventing infection. BioNTech’s vaccine program is expected to enter clinical testing by the end of April 2020.
Sanofi‘s vaccine global business unit is leveraging previous development work for a SARS vaccine to create a COVID-19 vaccine. Sanofi is collaborating with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to advance a potential vaccine candidate.
Strategic Benefit Advisors, Inc., is supporting employers by providing access to a COVID-19 digital toolkit of resources. The toolkit consists of information to assist employers in navigating legal and compliance, leave and disability, benefits, behavioral health, and employee well-being considerations.