Payment giant Stripe, AI firm Anthropic and OpenAI are backing a new $500 million nonprofit called Intercept, aiming to end the common cold and flu. The mission is ambitious: to develop broad countermeasures against respiratory viruses using vaccines, air-cleaning systems and protein engineering.

The initiative stems from the realization that drug companies underinvest in respiratory infections due to the sheer number of viral culprits—more than 200, according to the American Lung Association. Stripe’s executive Nan Ransohoff sees parallels with climate change efforts, both technically possible but lacking commercial incentives.

With backing from tech giants and philanthropists like Bill Gates, Intercept plans to leverage modern technologies such as RNA drugs and computational protein design. Structural biologist David Veesler believes we can now develop broad countermeasures against multiple viruses at once, inspired by rapid advances in vaccine development during the coronavirus pandemic.

The project aims to replicate successful public health efforts, like water purification, but on a respiratory virus scale. As Ransohoff notes, people spend 5% of their lifetime battling colds or flu, highlighting the potential impact of this endeavor. Whether they succeed remains to be seen, but the goal is clear: make sneezing history.