Currently, an estimated 2.6 billion people – one-third of the world’s population – are living under some kind of lockdown or quarantine. This is arguably the largest social and economic experiment ever conducted.
There are lots of coronavirus memes on the internet, however, this video takes a calm look at life before the COVID-19 pandemic. The video reflects on what things might look like after the crisis has long passed. During the lockdown we have all had an opportunity to reflect on what is important to us, so we should use this knowledge to become our best selves and create the world we want to live in.
There are also many jokes on social media about the positive effects of COVID-19, so here’s something to make you laugh:
An executive walks into the office of the chairman of a global airline. The chairman looks stressed. The executive says “Sir, I have some great news.” The chairman says “anything, give me anything.” The executive says “we will be carbon neutral by the weekend.”
New Zealand scientists call for COVID-19 vaccine strategy
The spotlight is on international scientists to come up with a treatment or vaccine for COVID-19, however, scientists here say New Zealand cannot afford to wait on other countries to develop a vaccine and are urging the government to invest millions from the public purse into research and development
BioTechNZ Webinar Series
Thank you to everyone who has attended one of the BioTechNZ webinars, and a special thanks to all of the speakers who have shared their time and expertise. The series will continue, however, the webinars will now only be held once a month. See below for the details of the next webinar.
Webinar: Platform technologies for rapid vaccine manufacturing
3pm Thursday 28 May
Join us to hear from Stephen O’Sullivan, ANZ Business Development Manager at Cytiva, formerly GE Healthcare Life Sciences.
Stephen will talk about platform technologies for rapid vaccine manufacturing. While it is accepted that vaccines are among the most effective medical interventions against infectious diseases, there is sadly a huge gap between vaccine availability and the speed at which a new vaccine can be developed. The webinar will cover a brief overview of new scalable platform technologies that can be used to accelerate vaccine manufacture and will outline how Cytiva is supporting a rapid COVID-19 response vaccine program in collaboration with an Australian University. Register here
BioTechNZ Market Insights Report Survey
Sunday 17 May is the final day to complete the BioTechNZ Market Insights Report Survey. If you have not done so, please complete it here.
As part of our research, we will be creating an infographic to showcase the New Zealand biotech ecosystem. If you do not want to complete the full survey, but would still like your organisation represented in the infographic through the inclusion of your logo, please let us know here.
Stay safe, be kind to one another.
Kia Kaha,
Zahra Champion
Executive Director
