Scientists Still Shoot for the Moon With Patent-Free Covid Drug

Hi, it’s Naomi in Berlin. Before I wish you a good “slide into the New Year,” as the Germans say, I want to catch you up on an unusual Covid-19 collaboration that’s still bearing fruit. But first of all…

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of scientists from all over the world banded together in an open-source effort to develop an antiviral that would be available for all. They could never have anticipated the many roadblocks they would face along the way, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which made refugees out of a group of Kyiv chemists who were doing important work for the project.