Trump's Department of War bets $47M on Flagship biotechs to develop countermeasures

Biotech Trump's Department of War bets $47M on Flagship biotechs to develop countermeasures By Marissa Russo Sep 23, 2026 9:35am Flagship Pioneering Medical Countermeasures Apriori Bio The U.S. Department of War (DOW) has awarded Flagship Pioneering a $47 million contract to developing medical countermeasure technologies against emerging threats. The funds will be awarded over a five-year period starting with programs at two Flagship-founded biotechs: Apriori Bio and Prologue Medicines, and the opportunity to advance additional projects with Flagship, according to the release.

A medical countermeasure (MCM) can be defined as an FDA-regulated product that may be used in the event of a potential public health emergency stemming from an attack with a biological, chemical or nuclear material, or even a naturally occurring emerging disease. MCMs can be: biologics, like vaccines or antibody treatments; drugs, such as antivirals and antitoxins; or devices, like diagnostic tests or personal protective equipment. The DOW's OnTarget program is managed by the joint science and technology office within the department's chemical and biological defense program.

The initiative is focused on preparing broad-spectrum countermeasures against emerging threats, precision delivery technologies, toxin-neutralizing platforms, novel approaches to immune enhancement and integrating AI and machine learning to optimize MCMs, according to the release. "By mobilizing Flagship's ecosystem of first-in-category, AI-enabled biotechnologies, we are not only advancing next-generation countermeasures, we will also be building the innovation infrastructure to define America's strategic advantage for decades ahead," Flagship founder and CEO Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., said in a statement. Apriori Bio was founded by Flagship in 2020 to develop vaccines, using AI and machine learning to predict viral evolution.

The biotech's Octavia platform profiles viruses based on their current and future ability to evade the immune system and delivers a view of a virus’ evolutionary potential. Prologue, which also originated at Flagship, is focused on understanding the viral proteome and identifying and programming proteins for treating diseases. The OnTarget program seeks to leverage Prologue’s Delve platform, which combines computation and high-throughput biology to identify powerful proteins with advanced characteristics for immunomodulatory protein discovery.

Flagship Pioneering Medical Countermeasures Apriori Bio Biotech