CEPI’s call for COVID-19 vaccine proposals seeks doses capable of 12-18 month turnaround

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness (CEPI) has extended a call for proposals on COVID-19 vaccines until September, pushing for licensure, efficacy and safety in quick order: a timeframe of just 12-18 months.

The coalition is working to guarantee that manufacturing capabilities and capacities associated with these candidates can meet global demand, which will require billions of doses. As such, the new call will favor vaccine candidates with field experience to indicate they are capable of offering protection after a single dose. To date, CEPI has nine vaccine candidates in its COVID-19 portfolio, seven of which have entered clinical trials.

“With our target of 2 billion vaccine doses being made available by the end of 2021, we are particularly interested in hearing from vaccine developers with a proven track record and who can rapidly deliver at scale to help bring an end to the acute phase of this global crisis,” Melanie Saville, Director of Vaccine Development at CEPI, said.

All costs related to scaling manufacturing will be financed exclusively by CEPI. It will also aid large-scale clinical trials and scale-up of production capacity to widen global reach. All international companies, companies in the Developing Countries Vaccine Manufacturers Network (DCVMN) and other vaccine developers have been encouraged to apply, with applications reviewed on a rolling basis.

CEPI is particularly interested in those that are already prepared to help a particular region with proven or soon to be proven COVID-19 vaccine technologies — and a proven track record of getting vaccines through development in general.

Much of CEPI’s work on COVID-19 has gone through COVAX, an organization jointly run alongside the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. That organization is dedicated to fair allocation of vaccines globally, and all awardees receiving funds from this call for proposals will, accordingly, be required to supply and sell vaccines to the COVAX facility at fair prices.