Pfizer Research Grant – Competitive Grant Program: AI-Enabled Models for Timely COVID-19 Treatment with Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir: Eligibility & Drug–Drug Interaction Management

This competitive grant program supports proposals that improve safe, timely access to adequate antiviral COVID-19 treatment for eligible patients. Projects should leverage artificial intelligence or advanced clinical decision support to identify patient eligibility based on current guidelines and clinical data and to proactively manage clinically significant drug–drug interactions (DDIs) to support appropriate disease management.

Overview

Early antiviral treatment is essential for high-risk patients with COVID-19, as prompt initiation within five days of symptom onset substantially reduces the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Incorporating DDI management into COVID-19 antiviral prescribing is essential for maximizing therapeutic benefits while minimizing risks. Research projects should address barriers and gaps in delivering outpatient COVID-19 antiviral therapy with nirmatrelvir/ritonavir, particularly ensuring treatment within the recommended time window, by using or developing AI-enabled solutions to determine eligibility and manage drug–drug interactions.

Research Areas and Activities

Proposals should address the following areas of interest:

• Specify the target country or countries and care setting(s), such as outpatient clinics, emergency departments, telehealth programs, pharmacies, or long-term care.
• Identify patients eligible for outpatient COVID-19 antiviral therapy based on current clinical guidelines, patient characteristics, and real-world clinical data.
• Propose a successful AI-enabled treatment and DDI management platform or prediction model that would deliver real-time, patient-specific antiviral recommendations, safely expand access to first-line therapies, and improve clinical outcomes by reducing treatment delays, inappropriate exclusions, and progression to severe disease.
• Propose tools to guide medication adjustments and monitoring, ensuring patient safety and optimal antiviral use.

Funding and Benefits

Funding Range: Individual projects requesting up to $500,000 USD will be considered. The estimated total available budget related to this RFP is $1,000,000 USD.

Award Amounts Include: Direct costs, institutional overhead costs (capped at 28% per Pfizer policy), and indirect costs.

Maximum Project Length: 2 years.

Milestone-based payments are structured as follows:

• Phase A – 50% ($250,000 USD): Payable by December 2026 upon submission of required documentation. Activities due by June 2027 include completion of project planning and design, data source establishment, requirements definition, regulatory and privacy framework, and overall AI system and prediction model architecture during months 0–6.
• Phase B – 25% ($125,000 USD): Payable by July 2027 upon completion of Phase A. Activities due by November 2027 include completion of model training and optimization, including assessments of efficacy, accuracy, tuning, overfitting, and bias during months 6–11.
• Phase C – 25% ($125,000 USD): Payable by December 2027 upon completion of Phase B. Activities due by December 2028 include completion of model validation and deployment, including evaluation of effectiveness and generalizability, implementation in real-world settings, retraining strategy, and ongoing auditing and monitoring of prediction performance between months 11–24.

Eligibility

Geographic Scope: Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Japan, Korea, Taiwan.

Applicant Eligibility Criteria:

• The institution and Principal Investigator (PI) must be based in one of the eligible countries.
• Only organizations are eligible to receive grants, not individuals or medical practice groups (i.e., an independent group of physicians not affiliated with a hospital, academic institution, or professional society).
• If the project involves multiple departments within an institution or between different institutions, organizations, or associations, all institutions must have a relevant role and the requesting organization must have a key role in the project.
• The PI must have a medical or postdoctoral degree (MD, PhD, or equivalent), an advanced nursing degree (BSN with a MS/PhD), or a degree in Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, or Social Work.
• The applicant must be the PI or an authorized designee of such individual (e.g., PI’s research coordinator).
• The PI must be an employee or contractor of the requesting organization.
• The requesting organization must be legally able to receive award funding directly from Pfizer Inc. Applicants are strongly recommended to confirm this with their organization or institution prior to submitting an application.

Application Process

Applications must be submitted via the online portal at www.cybergrants.com/pfizer/Research. First-time users should click “Create your password” to register. To begin, click the “Start A New Research Grant Application” button.

In the application, select “Yes” for the question “Competitive Grant?”, select the Primary Area of Interest “Antivirals – COVID-19”, and select the Competitive Grant Program Name “2026 IM G AI DDI COVID-19 RES”.

Submission requirements include completing all required sections of the online application and uploading the full proposal in the Proposal/Protocol field. The proposal should be single-spaced using Calibri 12-point font with 1-inch margins, and must not exceed 15 pages exclusive of references. The proposal must address: Goals and Objectives, Assessment of Need for the Project, Target Audience, Project Design and Methods, Innovation, Evaluation and Outcomes, Anticipated Project Timeline, Additional Information, Organization Detail, and Budget Detail in U.S. dollars.

Required Documents: Project Plan or Proposal, Initial Study Protocol, and IRB approval (Organizations must obtain approval from an Institutional Review Board if required for study execution; IRB approval is not mandatory at the time of submission but must be in place prior to 1 December 2026).

Deadline and Timeline

• RFP Release Date: 19 May 2026
• Submission Deadline: 7 July 2026 at 23:59 Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT -5)
• Anticipated Grant Award Notification: 24 September 2026
• Anticipated Project Start Date: January 2027
• Anticipated Project End Date: January 2029

Applications submitted after the due date will not be reviewed.

Contact Information

For questions regarding this RFP, direct them in writing to the Grant Officer, Talita Honorato-Rzeszewicz, at Talita.honorato-rzeszewicz@pfizer.com with the subject line “2026 IM G AI DDI COVID-19 RES”. For technical difficulties with the submission website, please use the “Technical Questions” link at the bottom of the page in Cybergrants.