August 6, 2025, SEOUL, Republic of Korea — The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) has joined the world’s largest network of laboratories working to accelerate the development of vaccines targeting epidemic and pandemic threats.

The Centralised Laboratory Network, led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), establishes a common framework of tools and protocols to standardize how new vaccine candidates are evaluated across member laboratories. The laboratories at IVI’s headquarters in Seoul and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) are the first in Korea to join the network, which now includes 20 labs across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australasia, and Europe.

By reducing variability in how data is generated across laboratories, the network helps address the challenge of comparing vaccine candidates tested using different methods. This standardization can support researchers and regulators in Korea and beyond to more quickly identify the most promising vaccine candidates.

“The inclusion of IVI and KDCA in CEPI’s Centralised Laboratory Network will facilitate harmonized and expedited evaluation of vaccine candidates during epidemics and pandemics,” says Dr. Manki Song, Deputy Director General of Science at IVI. “By joining this global network, IVI and KDCA can further increase their contributions to pandemic preparedness and global health security by enhancing our shared capabilities in clinical sample analysis and vaccine development.”

“When multiple vaccine candidates are undergoing testing, differences in how data is collected becomes an issue. As well as potential variations in markers of immunity, there can be distinctions in how and where samples are collected, transported and stored” explains Dr. Kent Kester, Executive Director of Vaccine R&D at CEPI. “This impacts the quality and usefulness of the data produced. IVI and KDCA’s new membership to our Centralised Laboratory Network will lessen these problems, to more reliably and quickly evaluate potentially life-saving vaccines under development.”

“By joining CEPI’s Centralised Laboratory Network together with IVI, KDCA expects to strengthen global partnerships in vaccine evaluation, enhancing preparedness for emerging infectious diseases and potential pandemic preparedness,” says Dr. Seungkwan Lim, Commissioner of KDCA. “To strengthen global health security, we will continue to expand our R&D infrastructure for vaccine development, targeting CEPI priority pathogens and Disease X, while deepening global research collaboration.”

IVI and KDCA’s membership in CEPI’s vaccine-testing network will bolster Korea’s capacity to respond to local and regional outbreaks. In addition, IVI is implementing a project supported by CEPI in collaboration with KDCA and the UK’s Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency to collect plasma from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome convalescent patients in an effort to establish a World Health Organization international standard. As the world continues to face evolving and still unknown infectious disease threats, these collaborations underscore the importance of global coordination and knowledge-sharing in accelerating the development and delivery of safe, effective, and affordable vaccines.

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About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.

IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that also achieved WHO prequalification in early 2024.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden, an Africa Regional Office in Rwanda, a Country Office in Austria, and a Country and Project Office in Kenya. IVI additionally co-founded the Hong Kong Jockey Club Global Health Institute in Hong Kong and hosts Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 42 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, Austria, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

Contact
Aerie Em, Global Communications & Advocacy Manager
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@www.ivi.int