On Aug. 12, 2020, Celdara Medical announced that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant to fund the company’s development of advanced antivirals for the treatment of pandemic and interpandemic influenza (flu).

The funding will support a demonstration of proof-of-concept against future pandemic threats as a part of Celdara’s Pandemic Security Initiative. The Initiative is a framework for public-private partnerships that integrates ground-breaking science, entrepreneurial innovation, public-sector investment, and private-sector business acumen to develop and produce the treatments and vaccines that will help address future pandemic-threats.

Influenza’s pandemic potential is well known. The H1N1 pandemic of 1918 claimed at least 50 million lives worldwide, while the H2N2 pandemic of 1957 and the H3N2 pandemic of 1968 each claimed over a million lives globally. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic was estimated to have killed as many as 575,000 people in its first year, and has since been endemic, as a seasonal flu.

The morbidity and mortality associated with, for example, highly pathogenic H7N9 and H5N1 avian influenzas, merits the urgent development of medical countermeasures to secure ourselves against outbreaks. If successful, the work supported by this grant will provide powerful and innovative tools for our frontline healthcare workers to treat patients, battle outbreaks and prevent pandemics from occurring.

Research reported in this press release is supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.