Austria formally announces donation to CEPI and joins the coalition advancing the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
Federal Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz: "We will only be able to win against COVID-19 in the medium and long term as well as successfully restart our economies when we have developed vaccines or a cure against the coronavirus."
July 2 2020, Oslo, Norway and Vienna, Austria - The Government of Austria has today formally announced €2 million (US$2.2 million) in funding to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to support its work to advance the development of COVID-19 vaccines, and enable global equitable access to vaccines once they are proven safe and effective.
The Federal Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, first announced support for CEPI's efforts as part of the European Commission-led Coronavirus Global Response Pledging Conference on 4 May. The funding announced today represents Austria's first financial contribution to CEPI.
We will only be able to win against COVID-19 in the medium and long term as well as successfully restart our economies when we have developed vaccines or a cure against the coronavirus. I am therefore glad that Austria is contributing €31 million to this end, with €2 million in particular for CEPI. CEPI brings together partners from all around the world in an important joint effort to advance research for the development of vaccines against COVID-19.
We are grateful to Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the Government of Austria for this important contribution to CEPI's vital work. Every country in the world needs access to safe and effective vaccines to reduce the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. By supporting CEPI, Austria joins a growing coalition of global partners which is committed to advancing the development of urgently needed vaccines to fight against COVID-19.
CEPI's COVID-19 vaccine development programme
In response to the global crisis, CEPI has worked urgently and in coordination with its partners to support nine COVID-19 vaccine development programmes.
Built on the principles of speed, scale, and access, CEPI's diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio includes modern and traditional approaches to increase the chances of finding a successful vaccine as quickly as possible. CEPI's vaccine portfolio includes a partnership with a consortium led by the Institut Pasteur, which includes the Austrian-based company Themis.
Six CEPI-supported vaccine candidates — under development at Clover Biopharmaceuticals, CureVac, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., Moderna Inc., Novavax Inc., and University of Oxford and AstraZeneca — have already entered clinical trials.
Alongside its partners Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization (WHO), CEPI is co-leading COVAX, an initiative that is working as an end-to-end solution to address the need to ensure global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX represents one of the four pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator.
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Notes to Editors
About CEPI
CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated 9 partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes will leverage rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.
Before the emergence of COVID-19 CEPI's priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever virus and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).
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