Strep A Vaccine Fund

Strep A Vaccine Fund

Supports Strep A vaccine development from discovery through implementation planning.

Eligibility · Global — open worldwide

The Strep A Vaccine Fund, managed by Coefficient Giving, maintains a continuously open call for Expressions of Interest across the full Group A Streptococcus vaccine development pipeline. The fund launched with $140 million committed and targets $200 million over five years from multiple philanthropic partners. Priority areas span five categories: advancing existing vaccine candidates through clinical trials; improving scientific foundations including immunology, epidemiology, preclinical models, and assays; seeding next-generation vaccines through antigen discovery and immunogen optimization; preparing the regulatory and deployment pathway; and ecosystem coordination. Near-term scope also explicitly includes rheumatic heart disease early detection and treatment, given the direct causal link between untreated strep A infection and RHD.

Seven grants have been made to date, with recent awards ranging from approximately $300,000 for conference support to $10.98 million for RHD screening programs. Eligible applicants include for-profit companies, nonprofits, universities, and research organizations; individuals are not eligible to apply directly. There is no fixed deadline — applications are reviewed on a rolling basis as Expressions of Interest are received. Award sizes are not capped at a stated maximum; the fund sizes grants to match the scope of proposed work. The fund is part of the Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy) Science and Global Health R&D portfolio, which has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to scientific research.

Interested applicants submit an Expression of Interest through the open call URL listed on coefficientgiving.org. The fund's scope deliberately extends from early-stage basic science through late-stage deployment preparation, making it relevant to academic groups, vaccine-focused biotechs, international health organizations, and global health NGOs. Given the fund's emphasis on neglected and underfunded areas of vaccine development, applicants with projects at any TRL from early discovery to clinical-stage advancement are encouraged to apply.