An international group that gets relatively little notice is the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a group established at the start of 2017 with both public and private funding and partnerships. Their mission from the beginning has been vaccine development and distribution assistance and funding. As an example of their COVID-19 efforts, on January 23, 2020 they agreed to provide funding for Moderna's mRNA vaccine development. This is not new for CEPI as they have been funding mRNA vaccine research before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19.
They have now allocated $200 million to funding for development of broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.
https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-launches-funding-call-to-advance-development-of-broadly-protective-coronavirus-vaccinesCEPI launches funding call to advance development of broadly protective coronavirus vaccinesOSLO, Norway, March 31, 2021: CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, today launched a call for proposals to develop broadly protective SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and broadly protective Betacoronavirus vaccines. CEPI plans to invest up to US$200 million in promising vaccine candidates up to clinical proof of concept.
Betacoronaviruses are types of coronavirus that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which have been responsible for major epidemics in Asia and the Middle East in recent years, and also SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The main focus of this call for proposals is to support the research and development of novel immunogens (ie, antigens that elicit an adaptive immune response) for use in vaccines that can elicit durable, broadly protective immune responses.
This opportunity will be open, worldwide, to research and development organisations with expertise in vaccine development.
This is part of a $3.5 billion effort announced earlier in March to develop vaccines for future viruses with a goal of cutting development time down to 100 days.
https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-launches-plan-to-tackle-risk-of-future-pandemics-and-epidemics