The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) announced an additional $384 million investment into Novavax Inc. this week, as a means of accelerating development and manufacture of its NVX-CoV2373 COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
This extends ongoing collaboration between the two organizations and brings CEPI’s total investment in the vaccine to $388 million — its single largest investment to date. The initial $4 million investment, provided in March, was to help Novavax use its recombinant protein nanoparticle technology to develop a vaccine candidate. With its identification in April, NVX-CoV2373 was rolled out as a stable, perfusion protein capable of neutralizing antibody responses.
“Our vaccine R&D programmes are starting to show progress, so it is vital that we invest now to boost manufacturing capacity so that our partners have the ability to produce vaccines at a global scale,” Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, said. “In response to this global pandemic, we’re having to be innovative in the way we approach vaccine development and manufacturing. We need to make progress on manufacturing in parallel with the clinical development of the vaccine so that if the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective, we can make doses available to those who need them without delay.”
The new funds will pay for preclinical studies as well as phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. Phase 1 is expected to begin this month, with preliminary results to follow in July. That phase 1 will be set in Australia, while phase 2 clinical trials will be pursued in multiple countries. The money will also help transfer NVX-CoV2373 technology to manufacturing partners around the world, for large-scale production. CEPI says this will allow for millions of doses to be manufactured by the year’s end, with higher figures still in 2021.
“CEPI’s investment in Novavax is critical to our ability to move quickly to advance this promising vaccine candidate as well as to prepare for the delivery of the millions of doses needed globally,” Novavax President and CEO Stanley Erck said. “We are humbled by their confidence in our science and committed to deliver on behalf of the global community.”