(Yicai Global) May 12 -- The billionaire founder of China's ByteDance, the owner of video platform TikTok, has pledged USD10 million to a special fund, kicked off by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to support research into drug development to beat Covid-19.

Zhang Yiming has committed to giving the money to the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, The Paper reported today. With a wealth of USD16.2 billion, the 36-year-old founder was No. 61 in the 2020 Forbes list of global billionaires.

Launched in March with USD125 million, the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator was initially backed by the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Mastercard but other notable donors, including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, have joined later.

Charities, government agencies, and private organizations, as well as individuals like Zhang Yiming, are aware of the value of cooperation to develop effective drugs to reverse the virus outbreak, Trevor Mundel, president of the Gates Foundation's Global Health Division, told The Paper. Before coming up with a vaccine, expanding testing, social distancing efforts, and treatment are the best tools available, he added.

Chief Executive Zhang has already been spending millions of Chinese yuan to stop the epidemic via the Beijing-based tech company. After his initial donation of CNY100 million (USD14 million), the scale of the company's medical aid fund has expanded, partly due to employee efforts, to CNY436 million.

Editor: Emmi Laine