HIV treatment development benefited from decades of large-scale support from governments, universities, charities, public-health organizations, and pharmaceutical companies.
Let's Solve FIV
For cats with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV), Let's Solve FIV in Cats is a transparent initiative to accelerate credible development of effective therapies.
FIV and HIV are both lentiviruses. Modern HIV combination therapy suppresses rather than normally eliminates HIV, and existing HIV knowledge may provide starting points for FIV research. Cats still need feline-specific efficacy, safety, dosing, and regulatory studies.
Let's Solve FIV in Cats is not a research lab, pharmaceutical company, or veterinary care provider.
Let's build a transparent reward fund
Let's Solve FIV in Cats exists to fund, coordinate, and publicly document work that may accelerate practical antiviral therapy for FIV.
The primary objective is a treatment comparable in principle to modern HIV therapy: sustained suppression of viral replication, not a claim that FIV can be fully removed from the body.
What is FIV?
Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) gradually weakens a cat's immune system, making it increasingly difficult to fight common infections.
As the disease progresses, affected cats may develop recurring respiratory infections, often causing persistent sneezing and nasal discharge, painful mouth inflammation, skin infections, weight loss, slow wound healing, and other illnesses that a healthy immune system would normally control. In advanced stages, these complications can significantly reduce a cat's quality of life and may ultimately become life-threatening.
While many FIV-positive cats can live for years with good care, there is currently no long-term antiviral therapy comparable to modern HIV treatment.
EndFIV aims to help change that.
Comparison with HIV (AIDS)
FIV therapeutic development has received far less sustained funding. That gap is not the only scientific obstacle, but it is a practical barrier to serious development work.
EndFIV exists to help fund and coordinate credible work toward a practical suppression therapy, while leaving scientific method selection to qualified implementers.
Possible Research Directions
These are examples, not requirements. EndFIV will judge outcomes against published safety and efficacy criteria rather than require a particular mechanism.
Possible approaches may include:
- Combination antiretroviral therapy
- Reverse transcriptase inhibitors
- Integrase inhibitors
- Protease inhibitors
- Entry or fusion inhibitors
- FIV-specific compounds
- Antibody therapies
- Other novel approaches
Learn more about these approaches on the Research Directions page.
The implementing research team, university, biotechnology company, consortium, or pharmaceutical company should remain free to choose the scientific method supported by evidence.
A useful therapy would need to show practical veterinary value, including safety, antiviral activity, dosing feasibility, and durable benefit for FIV-positive cats.
Development Roadmap
Developing an effective FIV therapy is expected to be a staged scientific effort rather than a single large project.
| Stage | Illustrative fundraising goal |
|---|---|
| Scientific review | USD 0.1M–0.5M |
| Laboratory proof of concept | USD 0.5M–3M |
| Therapy development | USD 5M–30M |
| Advanced veterinary development | USD 30M–300M |
The first objective is not to raise the full program amount immediately. EndFIV should seek funding one milestone at a time, with later stages pursued only after encouraging evidence.
Learn more: How these estimates were calculated, including treatment-cost and licensing considerations.
Award transparent criteria
EndFIV intends to publish award criteria, review process, eligible evidence requirements, and conflict-of-interest rules before any reward is awarded.
Eligible implementers may include pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, universities, veterinary research institutes, or research consortia. Independent veterinary and scientific advisors should help evaluate safety, evidence quality, and practical veterinary relevance.
Funding decisions and expenditures should be documented for public review.
Donate
Online donations support reward fund development, independent review, and external research evaluation. Funds will be reported publicly.
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Before donating, you can review the draft Founding Governance Principles intended to guide EndFIV's nonprofit formation, transparency commitments, restricted donations, and prize integrity.
Donations will be enabled after the nonprofit organization has been formally created.
Discuss
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