NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - A venture capital firm known for being an early investor in such companies as Amazon.com, Google and Genetech is creating a $200 million pandemic and bio defense fund to invest in new firms in that field.

The announcement Thursday by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said the fund's goal is to speed advances for worldwide pandemic preparedness and global health, focusing on surveillance and detection, diagnostics, vaccines and drugs.

"We will invest to accelerate innovation, and we're in a hurry," said a statement from John Doerr, a partner in the firm. "We hope even a mild pandemic never recurs. But we must prepare for the worst. Everyone should have access to these innovations. They must be offered at universally affordable prices to the developing world."

There has been increased attention to the threat of a pandemic in recent months due to the appearance of an avian flu that has been wiping out bird populations in Asia and parts of Europe and Africa, and has been traced to at least 86 human deaths. So far that flu virus has not mutated to a form that could spread easily from person to person. Experts fear if that happens, it could lead to millions of human deaths.

Governments around the globe have committed billions to fight the threat of bird flu, but most of that money is to buy existing drugs as well as conduct early detection and disease containment efforts.

The KPCB effort will work with biotech companies, universities, pharmaceutical companies, government agencies worldwide, and other venture firms to back pandemic preparedness. The fund's first investment is in BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Research) an Alabama company with a portfolio of products in development including Peramivir, an influenza antiviral drug candidate.

The investments can be good ones for the firm. BioCryst shares have more than doubled in the last six months alone amid rising attention to the threat of bird flu, and even some large drug companies working on drugs have seen their stocks soar on the attention.

Brook Byers, another partner at the firm, told the New York Times that KPCB decided to start a dedicated fund, rather than just make the investment as part of its normal course of business, to call attention to the threat. He said the private effort can accelerate preparations more quickly than some government efforts.

"A lot of innovative companies are waiting for a grant from the government," he told the paper. "There's not time to wait."

KPCB was founded in 1972 and is based in Menlo Park, Calif, in Silicon Valley. It has invested in more than 450 ventures, including online retail bellwether Amazon.com (Research), search engine Google (Research) and Genetech (Research), the world's No. 2 biotech firm.

For a look at how bird flu is lifting biotech stocks, click here.