Ex-BARDA Director Bright joins Rockefeller Foundation; plus Lilly, Q32 Bio, Apollomics, Axial and Grip

Rick Bright joined The Rockefeller Foundation as SVP of pandemic prevention and response to establish an institute that seeks to prevent future pandemics by responding to the earliest signs of a disease outbreak and stopping it within 100 days. Bright was director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and HHS deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response until he was fired in April 2020 after refusing to fund COVID-19 projects that had strong political backing but lacked scientific merit. He later filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that cronyism had crippled the U.S. pandemic response.

Bright contributed to two foundation reports released Tuesday: Accelerating National Genomic Surveillance, a plan that aims to provide a road map to accelerate the use of genomic surveillance in tracking SARS-CoV-2 in the U.S., and a companion document, Implementation Framework: Toward a National Genomic Surveillance Network. ...