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From Pandemics to Progress: A Survey of Venture Capital Investments in Infectious Disease

by Nicole Tanenbaum | October 11th, 2024

From the blow of the Black Death in medieval Europe, to the polio epidemics of the 20th century, and the widespread devastation caused by smallpox, pathogens have continually caused widespread morbidity and mortality. Today, several of these microbes feel like threats of the past. With advancements in controlling infectious diseases, vaccine-preventable deaths have dropped and human life spans have increased globally.

However, despite this progress, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections still pose a significant threat to global human health. In 2019, infectious diseases represented three of the top ten leading causes of death worldwide.  Emerging threats such as the rise of antimicrobial resistance and emerging pathogens like H5N1 also have the potential to compromise human health. Even seemingly more benign conditions like the common cold create a significant economic impact due to healthcare costs and lost productivity.

The immunocompromised population is particularly vulnerable, as they are susceptible to infections that healthy individuals typically overcome. Even upon receiving vaccination, this population can have diminished immune responses to the vaccine. Infections account for an astonishing 50% of non-relapse deaths among CAR-T patients.

Despite the global prevalence and impact of infectious diseases, the list of pathogens lacking effective preventative vaccines and curative treatments remains lengthy (Table 1). Even among pathogens with therapeutics, there is room for improvement. On average, influenza vaccine effectiveness ranges from 40% to 60% each year.

Table 1 Summary of vaccines and anti-infectives available for select pathogens, as well as limitations of current treatments.

Although the unmet need in infectious disease is clear, venture capital funding in this therapeutic area remains limited. Venture funding is crucial for fostering early-stage biotech innovation, yet therapeutics for infectious diseases often struggle to attract investment due to perceptions of limited commercial viability. While this reasoning holds some merit, a deeper analysis of venture capital trends in infectious disease is necessary to better understand the challenges in this space.

Infectious disease is an expansive field, encompassing viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections, each with its own species-specific characteristics and infection dynamics. These pathogens can be combated either through preventative vaccines or with anti-infective treatments (such as antivirals or antibiotics). Combining this diverse landscape into one category may obscure funding trends, development challenges, and promising areas. Moreover, major events like the COVID-19 pandemic have likely reshaped funding trends and the therapeutic development process for infectious diseases.

To gain a clearer picture of these dynamics, Pitchbook data was used to analyze trends in infectious disease deals over time and this data was complemented with interviews with key opinion leaders.  This work involved examining: changes in infectious disease deal activity over time (particularly in relation to the pandemic), how infectious disease companies progressed through funding rounds compared to other therapeutic areas, the underlying reasons why specific sectors within infectious disease (antivirals, antibiotics, vaccines, diagnostics) have faced challenges, and an analysis of companies that experienced significant valuation shifts from Series A to exit.

Trends in Infectious Disease Deals 2010-2023

To begin to gain an understanding of the infectious disease VC investment landscape, deal count and capital for US Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies pursuing infectious disease from 2010-2023 were examined (Figure 1A).

Trends in Deal Count and Capital Raised Over Time: In general, the total number of deals and capital raised in this space has remained low but reached highs during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2022. It is worth noting, however, that both capital raised and deal count during this period still made up a small fraction of the total capital raised and number of deals when viewed in the context of other therapeutics areas at time points before (2019), during (2021), and after (2023) the pandemic (Figure 1B). For each of these time points, infectious disease deals made up less than 7% of total VC deals and less than 8% of total VC funding relative to the other selected therapeutic areas.

Trends in Deal Count and Capital Raised Before and After Pandemic: Whether infectious disease is viewed in isolation or relative to other selected therapeutic areas, another trend that emerges is that there has been a steady decrease in capital raised for infectious disease companies since 2021. This is also reflected by the median capital raised per each year, with a median of $20.3 million in 2021 and a median of $6.6 million in 2023. While initially it seems like this drop could represent decreased interest in the therapeutic area after the pandemic, there are other possible explanations. In general, biotech funding in this period decreased due to macroeconomic challenges, such as high interest rates and the IPO market downturn.

Additionally, it is worth noting that a larger proportion of deals in 2021 were a part of later stage rounds where companies raised more capital, whereas a larger proportion of deals in 2023 were for earlier stage companies. For example, in 2021 Affinivax raised a $226 million Series C and Invivyd raised a $335.5 million Series C.  Since 2022, there have been a higher amount of early stage deals and few late stage deals. In 2022, the largest deal was Curevo’s $26 million Series A1, and in 2023 the largest deal was Inventprise’s $71.55 million Series A.  While 2024 is still not over, the trends of several small deals persists and the largest deal has been BlueJay’s $182 million Series C. Therefore, the decline in capital raised since the pandemic is more likely due to current market conditions and the stage of companies that are raising capital.

Trends in Funding Areas Before and After Pandemic: To identify trends in funding areas before and after the pandemic, deals were either grouped according to 5 company focus areas (vaccines, antivirals, antibacterials, diagnostics, and other) and the number of deals per a focus area were viewed over time. Most strikingly, the percent of total deals classified as “vaccines” went up from 26.09% in 2021 to 42.31% in 2023 (Figure 1C).  Among these companies, two trends emerged.

The first is that the most common infectious disease indication being pursued among the companies was COVID-19. This reflects a larger trend among all companies in this therapeutic area (i.e. not just startups), where as of July 2023, there were 69 ongoing clinical programs for SARS-CoV2 vaccines. However, there was still a breadth of other pathogens in these company’s platforms, including Herpes Simplex1/2, S. aureus, S. pneumoniae, RSV, Influenza, Dengue, and more.

The second trend that emerged is several of the vaccine companies that raised in 2023 were pursuing novel vaccine technologies. For example, Codagenix designs attenuated vaccines through leveraging an AI algorithm that guides the generation of “codon de-optimized” viruses with lower translational efficiency. Notably, there are also companies like Vaxess Technologies which have developed slow-release patch-based vaccines that ease distribution and administration.

Figure 1 Trend in Infectious Disease Deals Over Time. A.) Total capital raised (in millions) and deal count per year for infectious disease companies. Data obtained from Pitchbook search for United States VC-backed Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies listing industry keyword “infectious disease.” Additionally, companies not included in the search were manually added to the data. B.) Percentage of deals and capital raised across therapeutic areas. Data obtained from a Pitchbook search for United States VC-backed Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies listing therapeutic areas shown in graphs as industry keywords. For infectious disease, additional companies were manually added. C.) Focus areas of companies that received funding in 2019, 2021, or 2023. ‘Other’ refers to companies pursuing anti-parasitics or microbiome-based therapeutics.

Progression to Funding Series and Exits

In addition to viewing VC funding directed toward infectious disease, it is also important to consider the progression of VC-backed infectious disease companies relative to companies in other therapeutic areas. In particular, the progression to higher funding series can indicate that companies have reached significant milestones, are maintaining investor confidence, and are having success in raising capital.

To gauge company maturity across therapeutic areas, a Pitchbook search for VC-backed US Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies pursuing one of three therapeutic areas (key words infectious disease, neurology, or oncology) was performed, and current company stage (Accelerator/Incubator, Seed, Series A-F, Public, Acquired, Bankrupt, or Out of Business) based on founding year (2010-2022) was analyzed. Founding years were then grouped into three periods (2010-2014, 2015-2018, and 2019-2022) and the percentage of companies at each stage was calculated. Company stage was determined by the most recent round Accelerator/incubator- Series B was classified as “early stage” and Series C-F as “late stage.”

Figure 2 Company Stage by Founding Year. Percent of companies in indicated therapeutic area at given stage in 2024 (early stage, late stage, M&A, etc) based on founding year (2010-2014, 2015-2017, 2018-2022).

2010-2014

For companies founded in the 2010-2014 period, infectious disease companies stand out from neurology and oncology companies in two ways (Figure 2A):

First, a greater percentage of infectious disease companies are at “late stage” (25%) relative to those in neurology (11%) and oncology (15%). In fact, the combined percent of “early stage” and “late stage” companies exceeds that of the other therapeutic areas.

Second, while the percentage of companies that have gone public remains roughly equal across therapeutic areas, there has been a lower percentage of mergers and acquisitions for infectious disease companies (15%), relative to neurology (21% and 24%, respectively). Together, this could indicate that infectious disease companies in this period had stunted development and that acquirers had lower levels of interest for this therapeutic area relative to neurology and oncology.

2015-2018

For companies founded 2015-2018, there are no stark differences in company stage by founding year, especially when comparing exits. Of the three therapeutic areas, however, infectious disease had the highest proportion of out of business or bankrupt companies (20%) compared to neurology (8%) and oncology (16%). Upon taking a closer look at these companies, it appears that most only raised one round prior to going out of business and from the available information it appeared that all of the companies were preclinical.  Given the early stage at which these companies went out of business, potential reasons for this could be limited technical feasibility, inability to fundraise, or early recognition of limited commercial potential.

2019-2022

For companies founded in 2019-2022, a greater percentage of infectious disease companies are more advanced (i.e. later stage, have been acquired, or have gone public). However, it is worth noting there are significantly fewer companies in infectious disease (25) relative to neurology (53) and oncology (349). While the small sample size makes it difficult to draw conclusions, one intriguing trend is that all but one of the infectious disease companies at later stages are pursuing COVID-19. Potentially, the pandemic could have expedited the growth of these companies.

It is worth noting that there could be limitations to this analysis. Companies that did not have financing statuses listed on Pitchbook were removed from the analysis, which could distort proportions across all therapeutic areas. Likewise, companies pursuing multiple therapeutic areas (i.e. oncology and infectious disease) were excluded through the search criteria. Additionally, companies may be pursuing infectious disease, but may not use that keyword to list themselves. To compensate for this, some companies were manually added to the analysis.

 

Understanding Difficulties Faced by Infectious Disease Companies

Together, the low amount of VC funding directed toward infectious disease companies, the stunted progression of these companies relative to other therapeutic areas during 2010-2014, and the large percentage of out of business/bankrupt companies relative to other therapeutic areas in 2015-2018, suggests that companies in this are have experienced difficulties. Some reasons companies struggle could include (but are not limited to) difficulties in raising capital (as shown earlier), inability to clinically validate their technologies, complications in commercializing their technologies once approved, or struggles specific to a given focus area within infectious disease.

Clinical trial failure that exceeds that of other therapeutic areas seems unlikely. Relative to non-vaccine biologics, which have a likelihood of approval from Phase I of 7.6%, vaccines have a 11% likelihood of approval from Phase I. Likewise, anti-infectives have high likelihoods of approval at each phase of clinical trials – In fact, relative to the 6 other therapeutic areas listed, anti-infectives have the highest likelihood of approval at both Phase I and Phase II trials (although it is worth noting that this paper only included programs pursued by ~30 undisclosed companies of variable sizes). While this data does not consider the success rate from pre-clinical stages to Phase I, nor does it give a more nuanced view of different indications within infectious disease, it suggests that the clinical risk of investing in infectious disease company in general does not seem more pronounced than a company in another therapeutic area.

To gain a deeper understanding of the struggle unique to specific areas within infectious disease, each focus area defined earlier (vaccines, antivirals, antibacterials, an diagnostics) was viewed in isolation.

Challenges Specific to Focus Areas in Infectious Disease

Vaccines:  For the most part, companies pursuing vaccines face difficulties in the logistics of clinical trials and in the processes that occur after a vaccine is approved.

Vaccine clinical trials prove to be difficult namely because of the size and cost of Phase III trials. What makes vaccines unique is, unlike most therapeutics which treat an illness, vaccines are given to healthy individuals. Because of this, a large number of participants is needed to statistically power vaccine clinical trials to find less-common safety effects. Additionally, the larger trial size aids in determining whether the vaccine truly has a non-random effect compared to the placebo.

Another way vaccines are unique is, in addition to receiving approval from the FDA, vaccines must also receive advisory recommendations for use. This consists of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) evaluating the public health benefit of the vaccine, and then relaying this advice to the CDC director who generates the country’s immunization schedule. While adolescent vaccines have a more clear pathway to the nation’s immunization schedules, the pathway is less clear for non-adolescent vaccines. Securing a spot in this schedule is critical for determining whether insurers cover the vaccine and thus influences the market share that can be captured by the vaccine. Even if a vaccine receives recommendation, complex systems of suppliers, physicians, retailers, and patients must be navigated.  For vaccines, clearer expectations on how recommendations are made could reduce the risks for companies and investors pursuing this area.

Antivirals: For antivirals, several scientific challenges translate into challenges with the business model for antivirals. Viruses have tremendous genetic diversity. Therefore, a drug developed against a protein of one virus may not work as well against a distant virus within the same family. For example, Hepatitis C and Dengue Virus are both in the Flaviviridae family, but the drug ribavirin is only effective in treating HCV.  Unlike antibiotics, which are usually broad-spectrum against a range of bacteria, antivirals follow a “one bug, one drug” model where one antiviral can only be used for a small number of viruses.

Whether viral infections are acute or chronic can also affect the size of the respective antiviral’s market. While chronic infections like AIDs and hepatitis have large, stable markets, acute infections do not. Some acute infections may not occur as frequently, and in addition to this, may need to be treated early in the infection, which limits the market size for these antivirals. This phenomenon is exacerbated for pandemic viruses, where it is unclear if and when these antivirals will be used.

Even if antivirals make it to the market, they are susceptible to viral resistance, which is when viruses acquire mutations that lead to decreased antiviral effectiveness. In fact resistance has been reported for nearly all authorized SARS-CoV2 monoclonal antibodies. This can have a devastating impact if resistance arises before a company is able to recoup the costs of R&D. Given the difficulties in commercializing antivirals are inherent to the biology of viruses, this suggests alternative business models or support from the public sector are especially needed in this area.

Antibacterials: The difficulties facing antibacterial development center around a difficult business model. For most drugs, the millions to billions of dollars needed for R&D are later offset by drug pricing or sales volume. Antibiotics fail to have competitive pricing and sales volume.

First, antibiotics rarely have high price tags. This not only makes it more difficult to generate revenues, but also complicates the ability for novel, more expensive antibiotics to compete with cheaper antibiotics on the market.

Second, compared to drugs for chronic diseases, antibiotics are often used for a shorter duration of time. Similarly, to combat antibiotic resistance, physicians are reluctant to prescribe these drugs. Even in instances where an effective, but more expensive antibiotic may be available, the systems that hospitals and insurance providers use to standardize payments may disincentive the prescription of such an antibiotic. For instance, diagnosis related group (DRG) bundles, which provide a predetermined payment to hospitals for patients that fall within certain groups, may make prescribing a more expensive antibiotic unattractive.  Since hospitals will receive a fixed payment regardless of the service provided, costs that exceed the payment will put the hospital at a loss.  “Biotechs have to battle to get their drug on the formulary” explains Aleks Engel, a Partner at Novo Holdings who leads the REPAIR impact fund.

Ultimately, most antibiotic companies have a net present value (NPV) of 50 million, which is 14 times lower than that of a drug for a neurological disease. This results in a limited ability to recoup development costs, making it nearly impossible to cover the costs of sales, marketing, manufacturing, and pharmacovigilance. Like antivirals, there is a strong need for public sector support and legislature to address these hurdles.

Diagnostics: Diagnostics have slightly lower barriers to entry relative to the other focus areas, but still present challenges, namely in the approval process and launch.

For the most part, diagnostics for infectious diseases now follow a 510(k) approval process. While this pathway to approval is much simpler than the premarket approval pathway, which requires clinical trials, it necessitates a non-inferiority clinical trial design, meaning it must demonstrate that a new diagnostic does not perform worse than a pre-existing diagnostic test. If a novel diagnostic had desirable traits like increased speed, but was less accurate, it may not be approved.

After approval, diagnostics may have difficulties launching. One aspect of this is it could be difficult to supply testing centers with the appropriate reagents and machinery, especially if components of the diagnostic have specific storage requirements (ie refrigeration). The other aspect of this is it may be difficult to train staff on how to use the diagnostics.

With this being said, diagnostics are not subject to the same risks as therapeutics (development complexity, costly clinical trials, standard drug approval process), but can still be valuable. For instance, in the context of bacterial infection, they are useful in tracking antibiotic resistance and ensuring correct antibiotic selection, two critical criteria for antibiotic stewardship. Therefore, this area represents a lower barrier to entry that could still have a large impact.

Analysis of Exited Infectious Disease Companies

In addition to understanding challenges infectious disease companies face, looking at trends among companies that have successfully exited can reveal strategies for success. To identify companies that have successfully exited, a Pitchbook search for VC-backed exits with the keyword “infectious disease” was performed and, for companies that listed a Series A post valuation and an exit (IPO or M&A) post valuation, the fold change in valuation was calculated. To account for the time value of money, this ratio was divided by the time from Series A to exit. It is important to emphasize that Pitchbook does not list this information for all companies. This analysis most likely introduces a strong “survivorship bias” and is not representative of all the exits in infectious disease, but nonetheless can illuminate shared aspects among successful exits.

For the 47 companies with complete data, the median fold change in valuation was 10.94 and the average fold change in valuation was 50.18. Of companies that went public, the median number of years to exit was 4.90 years and the average time to exit was 6.84 years. These values (which are probably skewed toward the lower end) seem to be in line with average years to IPO for biotech as a whole, which according to other reports is a median of 7 years. Of the companies that were acquired, the median number of years to acquisition was 4.79 years and the average time to acquisition was 6.30 years. According to other reports, companies that have higher returns on investments typically had a median of 5 years to exit, suggesting that this subset of companies did not have longer times to acquisitions than companies in biotech as a whole.

If the fold change in investment from Series A to Exit is normalized by dividing by years to exit, a few companies stand out as having higher fold changes than others. Trends for companies that exited via IPO were identified and for companies that exited via acquisition, reasons for acquisitions were explored.

Figure 3 Valuation Fold Change from Series A to Exit. Individual dots represent Exit Post Valuation / Series A post valuation. This ratio was divided by number of years to exit.

Trends among companies that exited via IPO

Table 2 Top IPOs.

  • Of all the companies, Moderna had the greatest fold change in valuation, even when normalizing for years to IPO. This was a record-setting IPO for biotech, being one of the largest to date for the industry upon IPO. At the time of IPO, Moderna’s pipeline had 21 programs, ten of them were in clinical trials. The most advanced program among those was in cardiology and not infectious disease. Moderna was partnered with AstraZeneca and Merck at the time of IPO.
  • Among the top public exits, platforms dominate, especially platforms that enable the company to pursue other therapeutic areas. Pursuing infectious diseases with a broadly applicable platform may have less risk than a single-asset approach. Conversely, Enanta Pharmaceuticals has a portfolio of multiple small molecule antivirals. At the time of IPO, they were partnered with Abbvie and Novartis, suggesting the importance of partnerships with pharma in this therapeutic area. Currently, they have one HCV antiviral on the market and several other antivirals in phase 2 clinical trials
  • If the current market cap (as of 07/21/24) of these companies is divided by the IPO post valuation, for most there has only been a meager change in valuation. However, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Recursion, and Moderna have upcoming clinical trial readouts, meaning inflection points could be on the horizon.

Reasons for acquisitions among companies that exited via acquisition

Table 3 Top Acquisitions. Asterisk (* ) = acquired for non-infectious disease assets.

  • Tenebio: Amgen expressed interest in Teneobio’s antibody discovery technologies and T-cell engager platform. They also gained a phase 1 T-cell engager and other pre-clinical oncology assets. TenoBio’s anti-HBV/CD3 antibody, along with other antibodies, were spun out into a new company (Ancora Biotech).
  • Affinivax: GSK stated Affinivax was acquired for the Multiple Antigen Present System. This technology allows for higher valency vaccines that can generate a broad immune response to multiple serotypes of a pathogen
  • RQx Pharmaceuticals: Genentech acquired RQx therapeutics to help develop an antibiotic for multi-drug resistant bacteria. Among all of the acquisitions, this stands out because it involved a pre-clinical company.
  • Inviragen: Takeda acquired Inviragen because their dengue and hand-foot-mouth disease vaccines would strengthen their vaccine portfolio. In May of this year, the dengue vaccine was cleared by the WHO.
  • Coley Pharmaceuticals: Pfizer acquired Coley Pharmaceuticals for their toll-like receptor modulators that can be applied to several therapeutic areas, including Alzheimer’s, asthma, infectious disease and oncology.
  • Biovex: Amgen acquired Biovex for its oncolytic vaccine due to promising phase II clinical trial results and potential for use in solid tumors. Biovex was also developing a vaccine for Herpes.
  • GeneWeave: Roche acquired GeneWeave for bacterial diagnostic platform to increase their microbiology diagnostics offerings.

Conclusion

Infectious diseases, whether they be caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites, represent a large unmet need. VC funding for this area has historically been limited and, even though the number of deals and deal sizes increased during the pandemic, this area still comprised a small proportion of VC deals and dollars when put in the context of other therapeutic areas. With that being said, it appears a greater proportion of deals since the pandemic involve companies pursuing vaccines. Another noticeable shift was that companies founded after 2018, which largely had pandemic-related programs, showed increased efficiencies in progression to higher rounds, even when compared to other therapeutic areas (albeit the much smaller sample size of companies). While just a piece of the puzzle, these trends could point to shifts in this industry. Lessons learned from this period could benefit infectious disease companies as a whole.

The rise in vaccine deals following the COVID-19 pandemic underscores a shift in the vaccine business model. Historically, vaccine development was hampered by a lack of commercial demand and high financial risks. However, the pandemic response reshaped this landscape, as indicated by a 30% increase in vaccine candidates in the past five years.  This was made possible through unique funding incentives. For instance, advanced purchase commitments for COVID vaccines from organizations like Gavi provided guaranteed commercial demand. Similarly, significant public funding—$5.6 billion from the public sector and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations—reduced the financial risks associated with R&D and manufacturing.

Moderna’s success highlights the promise of flexible platform technologies, which have the potential to address multiple therapeutic areas. The analysis in this work shows that companies with the greatest valuation increases from Series A to exit—whether through IPOs or mergers and acquisitions (M&A)—often position themselves to tackle several different indications. In fact, the largest fold-changes in valuations often were for companies where infectious disease was not their main focus, (but was still in their pipeline). Perhaps pursuing infectious disease through this approach decreases risk for companies and, in the case of a pandemic, allows them to accelerate pre-existing programs. However, there is a downside to this approach, especially for acquired companies: when platform companies are acquired, the acquirers may prioritize therapeutic areas other than infectious disease, potentially diverting resources away from much-needed development in this space.

Another theme that emerged during the pandemic is the increased number of partnerships between pharmaceutical companies and biotechs pursuing infectious disease. Indeed, this trend was apparent among companies with successful IPO’s, such as Enanta Pharmaceuticals.  Pharma partnerships may provide biotechs the financial resources for larger late-stage clinical trials, offer pharma’s marketing and sales capabilities, and support companies through complex supply chain dynamics.

Public sector support has also proven valuable in advancing therapeutics for infectious diseases. In particular, antibiotics and antivirals would benefit tremendously from either public sector funding or legislature that improves the market conditions for the therapeutics. For antibiotics, programs like the PASTEUR Act, ease the process of commercializing antibiotics through creating a subscription style model where the government would pay upfront for antibiotics, ultimately delinking profit from sales volume. Additionally, the DISARM act aims to allow higher reimbursements for antibiotics and compensates hospitals for monitoring the use of antibiotics. Antiviral development, particularly for pandemic preparedness, remains an area of critical importance. Unfortunately, initiatives like the Biden administration’s Antiviral Program for Pandemics (APP), which aimed to develop antivirals in academic settings for future pandemic readiness, have not met expectations. A portion of the APP funding was diverted to develop variant-specific COVID vaccines, leaving the antiviral pipeline underfunded and underdeveloped .

Looking ahead, several areas within infectious disease have promise. The antifungal space, for example, is largely underfunded and faces challenges such as resistance, toxicity, poor tolerability, drug-drug interactions, and the need for personalized dosing regimens. Companies like Elion Therapeutics are working to address these issues, but more innovation and investment are needed in this field. Additionally, advancements in vaccine technologies that allow for at-home administration could help overcome existing logistical barriers to widespread vaccine distribution. Treatments for immunocompromised populations, who are disproportionately affected by infections, also represent a key unmet need. Finally, diagnostics may offer a safer and more accessible area for investment, given the lower barriers to entry compared to therapeutic development.

It is difficult to deny that infectious disease companies face barriers. However, it appears that systems put in place and lessons learned during the pandemic were beneficial to companies in this space. While it may not be feasible to implement these at the scale they were pursued during the pandemic, they could guide solutions to the difficulties in the infectious disease space. By understanding these trends and challenges, stakeholders can better allocate resources, identify sectors with high growth potential, and develop strategies to overcome barriers to investment, ultimately accelerating the development of much-needed therapies in this underserved field.

Written by:

Nicole A. Tanenbaum

PhD Candidate at Stanford University

LinkedIn Profile

Special Thanks to:

Aleks Engel, Ph.D.

Partner, Novo Holdings; Director, REPAIR Impact Fund