Steve Kirsch
Silicon Valley entrepreneur and computer whiz Steve Kirsch is no stranger to tackling tall challenges with creative solutions. Fascinated with computers from a young age, he has been in the CS and engineering game for over 50 years. Over the course of his career, he has founded more than seven companies, including Propel Software, Mouse Systems Corporation, Frame Technology Corporation, and Infoseek – all dedicated to improving computer software and tech.
He’s equally known for his philanthropic work across a wide variety of environmental, medical, local and planet-safety causes – so prolific that Hillary Clinton presented him with a National Caring Award in 2003.
These efforts took a personal turn when on August 11, 2007, Steve announced on his personal website that he’d been diagnosed with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a rare blood cancer. He tackled what for others might have been a devastating blow with his characteristic gusto – working with world-renowned scientists to develop an experimental treatment. His openness and creativity paid off when, to Steve’s surprise and delight, one such treatment worked.
When COVID-19 struck earlier this year, Steve recognized both his disadvantages as an immunocompromised man and his opportunity to make a difference as a man of means. He had already seen the efficacy and the practicality of using preexisting drugs and applying them toward other maladies, and so founded the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) – the only organization in the world focused on finding the most promising drugs and treatments that, when given sufficiently early, can reduce hospitalization and death rates.
“I did the research when I got Waldenström’s and, even with treatment, the mortality rate was about five years,” he said. “But the approach I had was to find the best scientists and fund them. We found a preexisting drug that worked to keep my cancer at bay. So when this [COVID-19] came along, I approached it in the same way.”
The organization was founded to test preventative drugs in people suspected to be infected with COVID-19 via outpatient clinical trials, which test existing antiviral drugs on patients as soon as they are infected. Steve’s work with the CETF advisory board aims to vet grant proposals by scientists working to produce preventative COVID-19 treatments, saving hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of lives.
“I started looking for opportunities to apply my expertise in a field where it was needed, where other people weren’t covering it,” he explained. “World leaders have promised nothing for outpatient trials, and the short-term way to attack a virus is to discover a drug or drugs that are already on the shelf today.”
The organization supports grantees through funding, improving study protocols, advertising trials through op-eds, newspaper and TV interviews, and finding ways to manufacture drugs faster and at lower cost. The fund is managed by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which will disburse grants that are recommended – in coordination with research being undertaken – by CETF’s Scientific Advisory Board. The initiative has drawn grant proposals from top scientists, including cancer genomics pioneer Bert Vogelstein and Michel Nussenzweig, whose research has led to the development of innovative vaccines against infectious disease and new treatments for autoimmunity.
Currently, the goal is to raise $30 million to continue supporting scientists developing preventative medicines – and the approach is paying off.
Thus far, CETF has raised funding for clinical trials for drug candidates including Peginterferon lambda, a hepatitis D treatment, and Camostat mesylate, a protease inhibitor used to treat reflux esophagitis and chronic pancreatitis. The organization is also raising funds to support COVID-related trials of remdesivir, a broad-spectrum antiviral developed by Gilead Sciences, and Toyama Chemical's favipiravir, an antiviral medication currently used to treat influenza in Japan.
“Like investors, you don’t want to invest in just one stock,” says Kirsch. “We’re just identifying where the best work is to fund, looking for the best opportunities that can make the difference on lowering the hospitalization rates and lowering the fatality rates. Because if we can move the needle on those, that’s huge.
If you can spend $20 million and test every drug scientists think are worth testing, those are the first philanthropic dollars that should be spent.”
To get involved, visit the link below, where supporters can give funds via credit card or wire transfer, or via donor-advised fund (DAF).
