The Pandemic Antiviral Discovery (PAD) initiative in Copenhagen, Denmark, has announced grants totaling more than $26 million in support of 14 research projects facilitating early-stage development of drugs to treat henipavirus infection and disease in humans. 

The grants are the first investments from the PAD initiative, a global philanthropic collaboration launched in 2022 by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Open Philanthropy, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The grants will support projects focused on henipaviruses, a subfamily of paramyxovirus that includes Nipah virus, which has an estimated fatality rate of between 40 percent and 75 percent. Henipaviruses can be transmitted to humans from small mammals such as fruit bats and cause respiratory illness, often accompanied by severe neurological complications. There is evidence of person-to-person transmission elevating concerns for pandemic potential. 

“The current outbreak of a highly lethal Nipah virus in Bangladesh is a timely example of the reasons why the PAD initiative chose to do a first request for proposals to develop new antiviral drugs for henipaviruses,” said Open Philanthropy senior program officer Chris Somerville. 

“Safe and effective antiviral treatments are a critical tool in responding to infectious disease outbreaks, but medicines to treat COVID-19 weren’t available until late in the pandemic,” said Gates Foundation deputy director of discovery & translational sciences Ken Duncan. “Preparing for future pandemics means investing in the discovery of lifesaving interventions before viruses of concern escalate into deadly pandemics and ensuring those tools will be readily available to anyone who needs them.”

For a complete list of recipients, see the PAD initiative website.

(Photo credit: Getty Images/manusapon kasosod)