Funding Philosophy: Valley of Death

In biopharma, the “Valley of Death” is where scientific breakthroughs die — often because there isn’t a compelling Big Pharma business case to develop them.

On one side of the valley, you have academia: brilliant minds working tirelessly in the lab, progressing from computer models, to cell lines, to mouse studies, and finally to the “Ah-ha!” moment when a breakthrough is discovered.

We thought that “Ah-ha!” would be a siren call for pharmaceutical companies to swoop in, pick up the torch, and shepherd the concept through development. But for rare and childhood cancers, the story ends with no funding and a dense technical paper gathering dust.

Why? Because early-stage trials—Phases 1 and 2—are expensive and risky. Most Phase 1 trials don’t make it to clinically available treatments.

Many foundations focus their resources on academia’s side of the valley, funding “Ah-ha!” breakthroughs with $50,000 or $100,000 grants. And while that’s undeniably exciting, it leaves too many big ideas stranded in the valley, not helping warriors and their practitioners in the clinic.

At Little Warrior Foundation, we think about the entire path to the patient. That’s why we’re making bigger investments, like the $350,000 we granted this year or the $2.5 million we’ve committed to the upcoming vaccine trial. Translational medicine takes time — frustratingly so —but we have faith that these are necessary steps to avoid the Valley of Death.

As a board, we decided that the only metric that matters is: How many kids are we helping? And we feel it in our bones that our donors understand that some years, we might not grant as much. Other years, we’ll write seven-figure checks. Every decision is guided by sound strategy and fiscal prudence, but our mission steers our ship.

Thank you for helping us launch across the valley, for enabling us to go BIG for the Little Warriors (and the big ones too). Together, we’ll make this better.