Powering Mission-Driven Drug Development.
Today, some of the most important innovation in ultra-rare drug development isn’t coming from traditional industry players; it's being driven by patient-led organizations, nonprofit biotechs, and mission-driven collaborators. These pioneers are stepping into the gaps where markets fail, but they are operating without the infrastructure, investment models, and systemic support that traditional biotech enjoys. If we want more breakthroughs and to truly change the future for these neglected diseases, we must intentionally build an ecosystem that recognizes, funds, and sustains these nontraditional innovators. That’s exactly why we created the Buffalo Initiative.
Our Approach
The Buffalo Initiative is focused on radically accelerating treatment development by reimagining how it’s financed, governed and aligned with patients’ needs. The Buffalo Initiative backs the patient-led, mission-driven innovators filling critical gaps in ultra-rare drug development and builds the infrastructure they need to go further.
Creating a Flywheel for Mission-Driven Drug Development
Building an Investment Network
Building an Investment Network
Building an Investment Network
At our core, we’re creating an impact investing fund focused on the toughest phase: the “valley of death”. We bring together philanthropic and impact investors to back projects at this high-risk, high-impact moment, helping get the best science ready for early clinical trials.
Creating Shared Infrastructure
Building an Investment Network
Building an Investment Network
Every project we support gets access to a pool of vetted experts, labs, and technical resources—things that used to be out of reach for patient communities. We negotiate partnerships so organizations are not left to navigate the process alone.
Championing Mission-Driven Projects
Enabling Knowledge Sharing & Pattern Recognition
Enabling Knowledge Sharing & Pattern Recognition
We fund work that starts with patients’ real needs, shifting the focus from researcher-led agendas to solutions that matter most to the people affected.
Enabling Knowledge Sharing & Pattern Recognition
Enabling Knowledge Sharing & Pattern Recognition
Enabling Knowledge Sharing & Pattern Recognition
All our partners commit to sharing data, results, and lessons learned. By learning together across diseases and projects, we spot what works, avoid common pitfalls, and make sure every dollar and every lesson moves the whole field forward.
Pilot
The Buffalo Initiative is an intentional 10-year effort to advance cures.
We are launching a pilot in 2025 to fund entrepreneurs, researchers, and patient organizations to accelerate discoveries for pediatric-onset genetic brain diseases tied to intellectual disability, epilepsy and autism (IDEA disorders) to clinically useful treatments.
This website uses cookies.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.