Intrepid Alliance

Beyond covid-19, globalization, urban expansion, and exploitation of natural habitats suggest humanity will face new forms of respiratory and other pathogens that hold the potential to cause pandemics. Orally available small-molecule antiviral drugs for rapid mobilization and distribution are a critical tool to protect societies from another viral pandemic. Unlike some vaccines and antibodies, antiviral therapies might be less prone to the impact of virus genetic evolution, may be effective against a broad range of viruses, and can change the course of disease even after infection. Most small molecule antivirals can be produced rapidly and cost-effectively at a global scale in existing facilities, but they require years to discover and develop, so it is critical to promote and support research, advocacy, and scientific information sharing across the academic biotech and pharmaceutical industry. In order to create efficiencies in the r&d ecosystem, the corporation will collaborate with partners in other sectors and its members in exploring redundancies and opportunities to collaborate for the benefit of humanity such as sharing new research findings, creating guidelines such as target product profiles, benchmarking global r&d efforts against pathogens of pandemic concern and creating a listing of promising lead product candidates by researchers globally. We hope to accelerate the collective understanding of viral targets and increase the likelihood of the r&d ecosystem in identifying promising leads. The corporation intends to facilitate further scientific information sharing by developing white papers on relevant topics, performing a landscape and needs assessment across public and private antiviral research sectors, and providing knowledge-sharing opportunities through organizing meetings and seminars. The corporation also organized and produced a global summit on antiviral preparedness for 100 stakeholders, published and disseminated the antiviral summit proceedings and recommendations, researched, analyzed and authored the antiviral clinical development landscape for publication in january 2024 and developed a target compound profile to guide academic, biotech, pharma and government drug developers in their r&d for antivirals.