With the rush to find a drug treatment for Covid19, a crowdfunded Swedish pharmaceutical company in clinical trials has perhaps paved a new path.

Vince Hamilton, a Canadian oil and gas engineer who was dying of neuroendocrine cancer (the one that got Steve Jobs), wrote a check for $1 million to get the research going into a genetically modified “oncolytic virus” that, theoretically could find cancer cells, infect and kill them.

The crowdfunding campaign website was posted, noting this donation and another ~$0.7 million rolled in (thanks also to a Financial Times article noting that it would be a “gift for the person who already had everything.”)

That kicked started the research project that is now in clinical trials.

Unfortunately, it was too late for Mr. Hamilton, who died in 2014.

But the company that received the funding has donated 5% of its equity to the foundation that started it all.

https://www.ft.com/content/6e3bf431-4ce9-494c-a58c-83e1735b150d

Source: https://jeffkoeppel.wordpress.com/2020/07/06/crowdfunding-a-cure/