Biological threat intelligence is increasingly becoming a workforce and business issue, not just a public health concern. Emerging threats—infectious disease outbreaks, pandemics and potential bioterrorism events—can cause significant workforce and operational disruptions.
The Business Group on Health is partnering with biological intelligence service BioRadar to help employers better prepare for emerging biological threats. The collaboration will give employers access to BioRadar’s AI-powered biological intelligence platform, designed to identify and assess threats in real time before they escalate into widespread health concerns and business disruptions.
The collaboration reflects lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizations said, exposing the need for more proactive monitoring and planning rather than relying solely on public health alerts after threats have already spread. The COVID-19 pandemic forced sudden operational shutdowns, severe revenue contractions and historic labor shifts across nearly every sector.
Through the partnership, employers will also help to shape the next generation of biological intelligence tools so that workforce needs, business continuity considerations and public health priorities are considered from the outset, the organizations said.
“The health, well-being, safety and productivity of the workforce increasingly depends on timely insight into emerging biological threats,” Ellen Kelsay, president and CEO of Business Group on Health, said in a statement.
“Employers need visibility, intelligence and proactive planning tools, rather than relying solely on public health alerts. At the same time, employers are uniquely poised to help mitigate biological crises, in no small part because they have direct access to large segments of the population and the ability to communicate and take action,” Kelsay said.
She noted that the partnership will translate biological intelligence into practical business value for employers, including earlier awareness of emerging threats, more informed workforce and benefits decisions, stronger preparedness and response planning, better protection for employees and their families, and reduced operational disruption.
Ashish Jha, M.D., former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, and Nikki Romanik, M.D. founded BioRadar to operate as a biological early warning system.
“COVID-19 proved that biological events create profound health and well-being, workforce, operational and economic consequences for employers,” Jha said in a statement. “Employers learned during COVID that waiting until a biological threat is widespread leaves very few good options. This partnership is about giving employers earlier, decision-ready intelligence – and involving them directly in building the tools they need to protect their people and sustain their operations when the next biological threat emerges.”
Romanik served as deputy director and chief of staff of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy. She noted that BioRadar’s “first-of-its-kind” partnership with the Business Group would help employers make earlier, more informed decisions in the face of biological threats.
“Novel and engineered pathogens, not just known diseases, are unfortunately a very real risk,” Romanik said. “BioRadar integrates environmental, clinical and other data streams to identify unusual biological activity and help detect known, novel and potentially engineered threats. Working with Business Group on Health will help us build that intelligence around decisions that employers actually need to make.”