Rapid Medical Countermeasures
Build the capacity to develop, manufacture, and deploy vaccines and therapeutics in less than 100 days of identifying a new threat.
Last updated: May 11, 2026 · Public updates are batched quarterly, with urgent corrections as needed.
5-year budget target
Pillar
Five-Year Trajectory
2026
Catalyze a government-led program to identify ten high-leverage MCM platforms and distributed manufacturing paths
2027
Advance government-led platform vaccine, therapeutic, and diagnostic programs while readying trial and manufacturing infrastructure
2028
Validate progress toward 100-day MCM capability, distributed manufacturing, and market incentives through exercises
2029
Exercise full 100-day response capability for diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, and distributed manufacturing
2030
Cement distributed manufacturing, market incentives, and public-private partnerships for rapid MCM deployment
Current Status of the Field
Vaccine platforms, broad-spectrum therapeutics, prototype-pathogen work, diagnostics, AI-enabled design tools, and trial networks are advancing, but many candidates remain too early to support a true 100-day response.
The 100 Days Mission and BARDA-style authorities provide a policy frame, but durable financing, regional manufacturing commitments, and market incentives remain insufficient.
The bottleneck is late-stage preparedness investment: candidates, manufacturing, trial protocols, and demand guarantees must exist before outbreak demand appears.
The Problem
The decisive factor in a catastrophic pandemic is the race between pathogen spread and countermeasure deployment. Current timelines for vaccines and therapeutics are still far too slow against a fast-moving engineered or novel pathogen. COVID-19 vaccine development was historically fast, and it still took almost a year.
The Solution
The 100-day target is achievable only with sustained pre-positioned investment in platform technologies, prototype-pathogen work, therapeutics, trial infrastructure, and distributed manufacturing readiness. Philanthropy should catalyze and de-risk this agenda, but the platform effort itself must be government-led through programs such as Disease X preparedness and BARDA-style advanced development, procurement, and manufacturing authorities. The most urgent priority is to identify and back the platform approaches most likely to compress timelines before the next crisis begins, then advance platform-product candidates through Phase 2b where feasible so they are not starting from scratch during a crisis. Over time, this should include universal influenza and coronavirus vaccine efforts, pathogen-agnostic and host-based countermeasures, and manufacturing systems distributed across multiple regions rather than concentrated in too few places. Compressing timelines also depends on companion infrastructure: drug-repurposing pipelines that screen approved compounds against novel pathogens, in-silico safety and efficacy testing that shortens preclinical evaluation, and pre-positioned challenge-trial protocols and ethics frameworks for rapid efficacy assessment when conventional trials are too slow. Sustaining this capacity between crises requires market-side mechanisms — advance market commitments, volume guarantees, and development finance — along the lines of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel’s pandemic-financing recommendations, so manufacturers see durable demand signals.
Objectives
- ◆Operational 100-day capability from pathogen sequencing to initial vaccine deployment for all pandemic-potential viral families, led by sustained government programs and catalyzed by philanthropy where markets or public budgets underinvest
- ◆Candidate vaccines and therapeutics available against prototype pathogens for every pandemic potential viral family, with platform-product development advanced through Phase 2b where feasible before a crisis
- ◆Universal vaccines authorized for influenza and coronaviruses
- ◆Geographically distributed manufacturing capacity, resilient supply chains, and regional fill-finish capability exist for diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics
- ◆Market incentives such as advance market commitments, volume guarantees, and development finance create durable demand signals for preparedness manufacturing and late-stage development
- ◆Defensive use of frontier AI is actively accelerated through secure, early access to monitored models for authorized researchers developing medical countermeasures and threat characterization tools against pandemic pathogens
Urgent 2026 Milestone
Catalyze a government-led Disease X / BARDA-style program to identify and pre-position the ten highest-leverage platform technologies for rapid MCM development, distributed manufacturing, and Phase 2b-ready platform-product candidates.
Long-term Targets
100-day readiness
MCM development
Manufacturing surge capacity
Year-by-Year
Philanthropy
- •Catalyze and de-risk a government-led program to identify and pre-position the ten highest-leverage platform technologies for rapid MCM development
- •Fund analysis of advance market commitments, volume guarantees, and development-finance mechanisms for priority MCM platforms
- •Fund development of pathogen-agnostic diagnostics and pre-positioned clinical trial infrastructure
Private Sector
- •Develop MCM candidates and prepare clinical trial sites for rapid activation
- •Advance platform technologies and prototype-pathogen programs toward platform-product candidates suitable for Phase 2b development where feasible
- •Plan geographically distributed manufacturing and resilient supply chains for diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics
Government
- •Lead Disease X / BARDA-style funding for vaccine development, prototype-pathogen programs, rapidly adaptable diagnostic platforms, and broader therapeutic readiness
- •Establish emergency authorization pathways and pre-authorize clinical trial protocols
- •Begin planning for distributed manufacturing agreements, advance market commitments, and volume guarantees across multiple regions
Philanthropy
- •Continue building PPE stockpiles held in trust for public distribution and fund readiness exercises for 24-hour delivery
- •Continue far-UVC and other biohardening pilots while strengthening the evidence base and playbooks
- •Continue catalyzing government-led MCM platform work, distributed manufacturing, market incentives, and clinical trial preparedness
- •Fund concrete operational response exercises and communication-playbook development
Private Sector
- •Expand PPE manufacturing and stockpile support
- •Continue deployment support for germicidal-lighting, filtration, decontamination, and air-quality pilots
- •Advance candidate MCMs through development milestones and maintain rapid trial and manufacturing readiness
- •Participate in concrete public-private response exercises tied to named playbooks
Government
- •Expand respiratory PPE stockpiles and exercise rapid-delivery systems
- •Continue regulatory and policy support for biohardening pilots, public-building standards, and emergency adaptation protocols
- •Lead development of vaccine, diagnostic, and therapeutic platforms, distributed manufacturing agreements, and emergency pathways
- •Lead government participation in exercises for specific coordination products and playbooks
Philanthropy
- •Continue funding stockpile expansion toward broad essential-workforce coverage and support surge-capacity agreements
- •Fund wider deployment of biohardening technologies, especially in underserved areas, public buildings, and critical settings
- •Support late-stage development of priority MCM platforms, distributed manufacturing, market incentives, and end-to-end exercises validating progress toward 100-day capability
- •Fund international response exercises testing specific activation, procurement, communication, and playbook workflows
Private Sector
- •Maintain or expand surge capacity for PPE and support broader logistics readiness
- •Manufacture and install air-decontamination and biohardening technologies at larger scale
- •Maintain geographically distributed manufacturing readiness for platform vaccine surge production and support scale-up of diagnostics and therapeutics
- •Support cross-border coordination mechanisms for specific products and services
Government
- •Expand national stockpiles and secure surge manufacturing agreements for PPE
- •Adopt or prepare pathogen-resistant building-code reforms, public-building requirements, and government-building retrofits
- •Fund and exercise end-to-end 100-day response capability, distributed manufacturing agreements, and demand guarantees for MCMs
- •Negotiate and test targeted multinational coordination protocols without depending on a new permanent command body
Philanthropy
- •Continue targeted support for final stockpile expansion, public distribution readiness, MCM validation, and communication readiness
- •Support harder-to-fund coordination, playbook testing, and stress-testing work that improves real-world performance
Private Sector
- •Maintain surge capacity and operational readiness for PPE, diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines
- •Continue deployment of pathogen-resistant technologies, distributed manufacturing readiness, and annual readiness exercises
Government
- •Maintain stockpiles sufficient for 90+ days of essential-workforce protection at pandemic onset in priority jurisdictions
- •Maintain tested 24-hour PPE distribution systems
- •Exercise full 100-day MCM response capability and specific multinational coordination workflows capable of activation within hours
Philanthropy
- •Support hard-to-fund maintenance, exercises, and improvement work across PPE, built environment, MCM readiness, market incentives, and coordination playbooks
Private Sector
- •Maintain surge manufacturing, resilient supply chains, and operational readiness across PPE and MCMs
Government
- •Maintain stockpiles, manufacturing agreements, demand guarantees, building adaptation, and exercised response workflows as part of permanent national and international readiness architecture
Who's Working on This
Funders
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Funder & Implementers
Implementers
biotech
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