NTI Bio

NTI Bio is the biosecurity and global health security programme of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a US-based non-partisan policy organisation founded in 2001 by former US Senator Sam Nunn and media executive Ted Turner. NTI was originally established to reduce nuclear and radiological risk, but expanded into biological and chemical threats following the 2001 anthrax attacks. NTI Bio is now one of the most influential non-governmental organisations in global biosecurity policy, focused on biological weapons risks, pandemic governance, dual-use research of concern, and laboratory biosafety standards.

NTI Bio's most prominent product is the Global Health Security Index (GHSI), a joint project with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Economist Intelligence Unit, which benchmarks pandemic preparedness across 195 countries across six domains: prevention, detection, rapid response, health system capacity, international norms, and risk environment. First published in 2019, the GHSI was widely cited during the COVID-19 pandemic — and heavily criticised when countries with high GHSI scores (including the US and UK) recorded among the worst COVID outcomes, prompting subsequent revisions to the methodology. A revised GHSI was published in 2021 and 2024.

NTI Bio also runs tabletop exercises on pandemic scenarios, contributes to the Biological Weapons Convention review processes, and publishes policy analysis on dual-use research governance. It is based in Washington DC.

NTI Bio appears in the pandemics-and-biosecurity briefing as a reference institution for biorisk and pandemic preparedness policy. Its Global Health Security Index benchmarking and work on biological weapons risk governance are directly relevant to Lowdown's coverage of pandemic preparedness frameworks, PHEIC thresholds, and the IHR amendment process.