Written evidence submitted by CEPI (EMD0061)
Dear Committee Members,
Thank you for the opportunity extended to CEPI to present oral evidence to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee as part of your inquiry into Emerging diseases and learnings from COVID-19 on the 24th of January 2024.
As a follow up to the comments I shared last week, we have below provided some additional details regarding CEPI’s pivotal role in the 100 Days Mission. We hope the committee will find this useful as it progresses its inquiry.
As highlighted, CEPI has identified five key areas of innovation crucial for achieving the delivery of pandemic vaccines within a 100-day timeframe. CEPI alongside others are already supporting efforts across these areas – but more action is required:
1. Creating a library of prototype vaccines: This includes creating libraries of vaccine constructs against representative pathogens from virus families with greatest pandemic potential. Advancing the world’s experience with vaccine platforms will also be important, so that they can be used for rapid adaptation to develop vaccines against new pandemic threats.
2. Getting clinical trials networks at the ready: Establishing global clinical trials networks with pre-established processes and protocols will be crucial. This will enable rapid generation of efficacy and safety data across a broad geographic base. These networks would be supported by a global clinical laboratory network (such as CEPI’s Centralised Lab Network) to facilitate faster data readouts.
3. Speeding up the identification of immune response markers: In response to the emergence of a novel pathogen, identification of immune markers can help to provide an early indication of vaccine efficacy prior to the traditional 14–21-day timeline taken to observe a full, immune responses. This will require further investment in research to improve our understanding of the immune response, enabled by the application of advanced data science and artificial intelligence.
4. Establishing global manufacturing capacity: Optimising manufacturing processes for rapid initial production and subsequent scaling will be critical to responding to future pandemic threats. Establishing a global network of vaccine manufacturers in or near areas at high risk of disease outbreaks is crucial. Keeping these facilities commercially viable in inter- pandemic periods will be key to their sustainability. To ensure these manufacturing hubs can respond to a pandemic, manufacturing capacity for multiple different vaccine platforms will need to be reserved in advance of any pandemic.
