Stacy L ChinFounder, KeepYourEquity · I get the government to write you checks

Millions for Antivirals & Vaccines: Funding Your Startup

20 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this briefing Stacy Chin explains that, although public attention has shifted away from COVID‑19, U.S. federal funding agencies remain heavily invested in pandemic preparedness. The NIH, BARDA, DoD, and ARPA‑H are allocating millions to develop broad‑spectrum antivirals, pan‑virus vaccine platforms, rapid and field‑deployable diagnostics, on‑demand biologic manufacturing, and AI‑driven pathogen surveillance. She cites specific initiatives such as NIH’s AVIDD centers (oral antivirals for whole virus families), BARDA’s Project NextGen (modular vaccine platforms), DoD’s M‑TECH (automated threat detection and on‑demand biomanufacturing), and ARPA‑H’s recent call for AI‑based antigen prediction and scalable manufacturing solutions. Chin advises startups working in infectious‑disease therapeutics, diagnostics, synthetic/systems biology, or real‑time biosurveillance to align with these funding lanes, noting that many of these projects are SBIR‑eligible, offering a clear pathway for early‑stage companies to secure federal support.

Chapters

The headlines have moved away from COVID-19, but funding agencies haven't. NIH, BARDA, and ARPA-H are pouring millions of dollars into broad-spectrum antivirals, pan-virus vaccines, and rapid diagnostics that can pivot fast in case an outbreak hits. And this is not just medicine, but also in the infrastructure. Think on-demand biologic manufacturing, field-deployable testing, and AI-driven pathogen surveillances. So for example, NIH AVIDD centers are funding new oral antivirals against entire virus families. BARDA's Project NextGen is pushing modular vaccines and platforms. DoD's M-TECH is looking for on-demand biomanufacturing and automated threat detection. And more recently, ARPA-H put out a call for AI to predict antigens that can work across multiple viruses and also looking for different ways to scale up these manufacturing capabilities. So if your startup touches on infectious diseases, diagnostics, synthetic biology, genetic biology or real-time biosurveillance, this is your lane. And don't forget, these are also SBIR eligible innovations.