{"text":[[{"start":6.6,"text":"A $500mn investment by corporate and philanthropic donors aims to curb respiratory infections and press for their elimination, with backers including payments company Stripe, AI group Anthropic and the OpenAI Foundation."}],[{"start":21.4,"text":"The initiative, known as Intercept, will target both new drugs and air-cleaning methods, aiming to reduce the toll on health and economic productivity caused by the sometimes deadly viruses."}],[{"start":33.099999999999994,"text":"“The goal is really to make respiratory infections a thing of the past,” said Nan Ransohoff, a co-head of Intercept and Stripe’s head of public goods. While Intercept is “not guaranteed to succeed”, it has “a good shot at moving the needle”, she said."}],[{"start":47.89999999999999,"text":"The project launched on Wednesday is also backed by the non-profit Flu Lab, individuals from the Jane Street trading firm and by Bill Gates via a philanthropic entity."}],[{"start":58.04999999999999,"text":"Scientists welcomed the proposed grants and investments as a necessary response to a debilitating group of diseases, although some noted Intercept’s scope seemed ambitious given the scale of the initial funding."}],[{"start":69.64999999999999,"text":"Intercept seeks to promote the development of vaccines, sprays and pills capable of inhibiting multiple members of the various families of respiratory viruses that cause conditions from colds to Covid-19 and influenza. The idea is to fund promising products to establish proof of concept in people, after which a big pharmaceutical company would take over development."}],[{"start":92.85,"text":"The air-cleaning work will focus on scaling up existing technologies that block or kill airborne pathogens. Intercept is building a network of potential buyers of the products, including JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, Meta, Stripe and Anthropic. "}],[{"start":108.94999999999999,"text":"Jacco Boon, a respiratory virus expert at Washington University, said the case for investing to combat respiratory pathogens was strong, but that Intercept was starting “many parallel efforts” at once and its potential impact was hard to predict. “There will be benefit, but whether it reaches the scale these goals imply is uncertain,” he said."}],[{"start":130.1,"text":"Ransohoff said Intercept’s diverse group of funders showed how respiratory infections are “a bit of a Rorschach test, because different donors find different parts of the problem compelling."}],[{"start":140.75,"text":"“There’s a group of donors who are really interested in the pandemic and biosecurity angle,” Ransohoff said. Other groups are more interested in the “economic burden angle” or the “global health angle”, she added. “There’s something in it for everyone.”"}],[{"start":155.45,"text":"The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the destructive power of respiratory viruses, killing an estimated 14.9mn people in 2020 and 2021 and causing trillions of dollars of economic damage. Respiratory infections cost businesses in the UK alone an estimated £44bn a year, according to a 2024 estimate by the Office of Health Economics research charity."}],[{"start":182.14999999999998,"text":"Ann Falsey, an infectious disease specialist at University of Rochester Medicine, said the prevention of respiratory pathogens across the viral spectrum would be “incredibly beneficial to mankind” but “extremely difficult” scientifically. "}],[{"start":197.39999999999998,"text":"“Since a good motto is to ‘never say never’ I will be very interested to see what this initiative can produce.” "}],[{"start":210.49999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782348954_6426.mp3"}