The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) has identified manufacturers with capacity to produce four billion doses a year.
CEPI is an influential foundation focused on preparation and response to epidemics. Currently, it is backing nine potential coronavirus vaccines.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) plans to have two or three manufacturing plants for each vaccine, James Robinson, a longtime biopharma executive leading CEPI’S vast manufacturing push, said in an interview to Reuters.
With nearly 10 million Covid-19 patients across the globe and over 4.8 coronavirus fatalities, the virus has almost the entire planet under its grip and the need for a Covid-19 antidote becomes more urgent by the day.
Here are the latest development on Covid-19 vaccine and treatment:
- The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc.’s experimental vaccine, ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is expected to be launched by the end of this year.
- The first clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Oxford University begins in South Africa.
- Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral remdesivir could be priced up to $5,080 per course, a US drug pricing research group suggested.
- A Chinese military research institute has been approved to test its second experimental coronavirus vaccine in humans, the eighth Chinese candidate in clinical trials.
CEPI
Connected to many efforts to find a COVID-19 vaccine you’ll find the name CEPI — the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations that billionaire Bill Gates helped found in 2016.
CEPI has partnered with some of the companies focused on finding a coronavirus vaccine. Recently, CEPI has given $388 million to Maryland-based Novavax to develop its vaccine candidate and $6.9 million for Pennsylvania-based Inovio to test its vaccine candidate in South Korea.
CEPI’s website describes it as an “innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations.”
“We’re working together to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks,” its website says.
