Stripe, founded by brothers Patrick and John Collison, has earmarked $500 million for a new nonprofit called Intercept that will tackle the common cold and flu. The goal is to eliminate respiratory viruses through grants and investments in vaccines and large‑scale air‑cleaning systems for schools, offices and other public spaces in the coming years.

Funding comes from Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation, Bill Gates, and traders at Jane Street Capital, alongside Stripe. Executive Nan Ransohoff says respiratory infections cost the average person about 5% of their lifetime, yet drug companies see little incentive to develop vaccines because over 200 different viruses—primarily rhinoviruses—cause the sniffles and health burdens worldwide.

Vaccine designer David Veesler argues that modern tools—RNA drugs, antibodies, and computational protein design—can produce broad countermeasures. One proposal is virus‑capturing proteins that people could spray into their nasal passages to neutralize pathogens before infection. If successful, such approaches could shift the fight from reactive treatments to proactive prevention across schools, offices, and homes.

Intercept will also explore ultraviolet light to inactivate airborne viruses, mirroring municipal water purification strategies. With US federal virus research spending at $6.5 billion annually, private philanthropy fills a funding gap. Stripe’s Collison brothers, known for rapid grants during COVID‑19, aim to make respiratory virus eradication a tangible scientific target for the next decade.