$2 billion Required to Support the Development of a Vaccine Against COVID-19

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the organisation set up to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, has made an urgent call for $2 billion to support the development of a vaccine against the virus responsible for COVID-19.

The call for $2 billion of new funding will enable CEPI to expand the number of vaccine candidates at the outset to increase the chances of success, and to fund the clinical trials for these candidate vaccines. CEPI ambition is to have at least 3 vaccine candidates, which could be submitted to regulatory authorities for licensure for general use/use in outbreaks.

CEPI has identified five funding phases that will enable to start work now:

• $100 million immediately, to support vaccine development for 8 candidates through phase 1 clinical trials.
• $375 million by end of March, 2020, to support manufacturing of clinical trial material for phase 2/3 trials for 4-6 vaccine candidates.
• $400 million by end of June, 2020, to support execution of phase 2/3 trials for at least 2 candidates. Further investment in scaling up / technology transfer of manufacturing process for up to 6 candidates
• $500 million to $750 million in 2021, to support enhancing global manufacturing capacity with tech transfer to geographically distributed locations of up to 3 candidates.

Source