Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI Invest in Combating Respiratory Viruses

Tech giants Stripe, Anthropic, and OpenAI have joined forces to fund the Intercept project, aimed at combating respiratory viral infections. The initiative mirrors Stripe’s earlier Frontier program, which allocated $1.8 billion to carbon removal technologies. According to Nan Ransohoff, Stripe’s head of climate, both climate and virology challenges are technically solvable but lack sufficient commercial incentives for private investors.

The idea for Intercept emerged from discussions between Ransohoff and David Veesler, a structural biologist and vaccine developer at the University of Washington. Veesler convinced colleagues that modern scientific tools—including RNA-based drugs, antibodies, and computational protein design—could enable the creation of universal protections against a broad range of viruses. One promising approach involves designing proteins that can be sprayed into the nasal cavity to 'trap' pathogens before they enter the body.

Scientists note that most people accept respiratory infections as inevitable, though modern technology could change this. "Many of these problems haven’t been explored using the latest methods," Veesler emphasizes. The Intercept project aims to bridge this gap by leveraging resources from tech companies to accelerate development.