Respiratory pathogens cause billions of infections a year, from the common cold to the flu and COVID. Now, a new 500-million dollar investment fund pooled from a variety of sources, including tech companies Stripe and Anthropic, is hoping to financially back the development of treatments that could protect people from many viruses at once. The fund, which launched June 24, is also looking to support research into the adoption of technologies like air filtration in offices and airports to remove pathogens from the air directly. Called Intercept, the project is “aimed at making respiratory infections like the common cold and flu a thing of the past,” says Nan Ransohoff, one of the leaders of the new initiative and head of public goods at Stripe. 

What Intercept plans to fund

The group wants to support research into treatments and technologies that are already being studied but face challenges making the leap to the consumer market, says Charlie Petty, the co-head of Intercept who also works at Stripe. When it comes to preventing diseases using drugs, that could mean therapies that activate the immune system so that viruses can’t get a foothold, or medicines that prime it against multiple viruses at once.

The goal is to shepherd at least two drugs or treatments through the first two phases of clinical trials, says Ransohoff, with the hope that at that point, pharmaceutical companies would be willing to step in to take them the rest of the way to market. “That is the theory—we will see in practice where we get with that,” she says. 

The fund is planning to announce calls for grant applications at some point; Petty and Ransohoff did not specify a date.

Some technologies are already proven to reduce infections

Another challenge in this field involves how to deploy already proven technologies, like air filtration and UV lights that can disinfect the air in rooms. The evidence base for physical air cleaners reducing infection is strong. But retrofitting buses, schools, and other places where people congregate with filtering systems is unwieldy and expensive. 

“Part of our initiative is getting corporate partners to agree to [run] pilots and to give us feedback,” Petty says, by, for instance, testing out air filtration systems in their offices. Warby Parker, Mastercard, and JP Morgan are among the companies Intercept say they have enlisted as part of a “network of future buyers” that have expressed interest in exploring these technologies in the workplace.   

Is 500 million enough?

It might sound like a lot of money, but “de-risking” drugs, as this strategy is called, is expensive. “Back of the envelope, Phase I and Phase II clinical trials are going to cost $20 to $30 million” per drug, estimates Samuel Scarpino, director of AI + life sciences at Northeastern University and a professor in the practice of health and computer sciences (who is not involved with Intercept). And the next step toward approval, conducting a Phase III trial, is even more expensive.

In pharmaceutical circles, it’s difficult to drum up interest in antivirals and antimicrobials because they are used only sparingly, when people are ill, he says. But because Intercept is “looking for things that are essentially prophylactic,” Scarpino continues, “then you're imagining that people are taking these things all the time. And that may change the economics of somebody investing in the Phase III trial.” 

Ransohoff acknowledges that the problem is large, and will likely require additional investment. “We absolutely do not expect $500 million to be the sum total of funds that will be required to achieve the goal,” she said. “But that's kind of our little part in it.”