September 1, 2023; Oslo, Norway, Seoul, Republic of Korea – The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) today announced a renewed collaboration to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases. The signing ceremony took place between Dr Jerome Kim (Director General of IVI) and Dr Richard Hatchett (CEO of CEPI) at the CEPI office in London, UK.

Under the terms of the renewed CEPI-IVI Implementing Partnership Agreement, IVI will provide technical services for CEPI-funded projects, leveraging IVI’s expertise and capabilities at their headquarters in Korea and around the world to help accelerate vaccine development against pathogens with epidemic or pandemic potential, and in support of CEPI’s 100 Days Mission, a goal to reduce the time taken to develop safe and effective vaccines against pathogens with pandemic potential to 100 days. To this end, IVI will support CEPI across a variety of projects, including providing strategic, technical and scientific support for clinical development and manufacturing of vaccines, standards and assay development, and capacity-building initiatives that strengthen local resources to help establish or improve research preparedness and emergency evidence generation for future outbreaks.

The ongoing CEPI-IVI partnership builds upon previous successful collaborations between the two organizations.

Dr Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer, CEPI, said, “We are delighted to reaffirm our partnership with IVI, following several years of fruitful collaboration to advance vaccine R&D for better global health. As our organisations continue to work toward the joint goal of accelerating the development of safe, effective and accessible vaccines against emerging infectious diseases, this ongoing partnership will play an important role in our work to ensure the world is better prepared to fight future outbreaks.”

Dr Jerome Kim, Director General, IVI, said, “Our partnership with CEPI is an exemplary model of a public-private partnership with the vision, support, and capabilities to move innovative vaccine technology from need to impact. Following years of collaboration across laboratory research, epidemiology, vaccine clinical development, and clinical research preparedness for diseases such as COVID-19, chikungunya, and MERS, we are proud and looking forward to expanding IVI’s role as an implementing partner to advance vaccines against emerging and epidemic infectious diseases.”

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About CEPI

CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched in 2017, to develop vaccines against future epidemics. Its mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need.

Prior to COVID-19, CEPI’s work focused on developing vaccines against Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever virus and Chikungunya virus – it has over 20 vaccine candidates against these pathogens in development. CEPI has also invested in new platform technologies for rapid vaccine development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).

CEPI has played a central role in the global response to COVID-19, supporting the development of the world’s largest portfolio of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants with a focus on speed, scale and access, as well as co-leading COVAX, the global initiative to deliver fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. CEPI is also the world’s leading funder of R&D for broadly protective coronavirus vaccines which could protect against future variants of COVID-19 as well as other coronaviruses with epidemic and pandemic potential.

CEPI has embarked upon an ambitious US$3.5bn five-year plan – called CEPI 2.0 – to dramatically reduce or even eliminate the future risk of pandemics and epidemics. Central to the plan is CEPI’s goal – supported by the G7 and G20 – to compress the time taken to develop safe, effective, globally accessible vaccines against new threats to just 100 days. Achieving this ‘100 Days Mission’ would give the world a fighting chance of containing a future outbreak before it spreads to become a global pandemic. Read the plan at endpandemics.cepi.net/

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 is currently under assessment for WHO PQ.

IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.

Media contacts

CEPI

E: press@cepi.net

P: +44 7387 055214

IVI

E: aerie.em@www.ivi.int

P: +82 2 881 1386