The race to find a coronavirus treatment has one major obstacle: big pharma | Ara Darzi

AI companies and scientists are cooperating, but they desperately need access to pharmaceutical companies' data

• Prof Ara Darzi is a surgeon and director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London

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The past few weeks have revealed the worst and the best in human responses to the coronavirus crisis - from the supermarket hoarders clearing the shelves to the neighbourhood groups organising help for elderly and vulnerable people.

When it comes to the pharmaceutical companies, how should we judge their response? They, after all, hold the key to ending the pandemic. Yet in one vital respect their behaviour has more in common with the supermarket hoarders than the neighbourhood groups.