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The Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize
The Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize is a £6.25 million challenge prize aiming to improve outcomes for people affected by snakebite in high-burden settings.
Entries are open until 12pm UTC 16 September 2026 to organisations around the world.
About the prize:
We are calling for innovators to tackle critical challenges and improve outcomes for people affected by snakebite in high-burden settings by strengthening community responses, accelerating access to appropriate care, or improving the delivery of treatment.
Interested in learning more about snakebite and how you can get involved in the prize?
The Wellcome Snakebite Innovation Prize is awarding £6.25 million to support the most impactful solutions.
Who is most affected by snakebite?
The burden of snakebite is felt most acutely by rural, poor, and agrarian communities predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, South-East Asia, and Latin America.
In many of these high-burden settings, people work outdoors and live far from health facilities, making them vulnerable to snakebites, while facing challenges in accessing lifesaving care.
Timeline of the Prize
Entrant Support:
Find collaborators using our match-making platform.
Snakebite is a complex challenge, demanding cross-disciplinary responses.
Innovators from all fields are needed to design impactful solutions to bridge the gap and develop technological, social, logistical, and systems-level innovations.
Gain insights in our webinar series and join the SnakeHacks.
The prize has partnered with Appropedia, Villgro Africa, MRFRI & Villgro Philippines during our entry phase to ensure that innovators based in regions most affected by snakebite are supported in developing solutions for the prize.
Find out all the details you need to enter the prize.
Wellcome is supporting up to 15 global innovators to launch or grow their sustainable solutions to improve community response and fast, equitable access to quality care for people affected by snakebite.
Use your expertise to develop a practical solution to address the key barriers preventing someone from accessing lifesaving care for snakebite.
Challenge prizes support open innovation for diverse problem-solvers, enabling the most promising ideas to progress with funding and expert capacity-building support. We welcome those closest to the problem - rural health workers, community leaders, and people with first-hand experience of snakebite - who are already finding ways to respond but need support to scale their novel and practical approaches.