Seoul and Oslo, 21st December 2021 – SK bioscience (SK) and CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, announced today an expanded partnership to develop a ‘variant-proof’ vaccine candidate against the group of viruses containing SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2.
CEPI will provide up to USD $50 million to support the development of a vaccine candidate based on SK’s nanoparticle vaccine platform to elicit immune responses that could protect against variants of both SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and other similar viruses. The funding will support immunogen design, preclinical studies, Phase I/II clinical trials, production of necessary clinical trial material, and process and analytical development. To date, CEPI has invested up to $260 million—including the funding announced today—to advance SK’s vaccine platform and manufacturing capacity for use against COVID-19.
This partnership is the latest award under CEPI’s $200 million programme, launched in March 2021, to advance the development of vaccines that provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and other Betacoronaviruses [1]. CEPI is accelerating its programme to develop broadly protective coronavirus vaccines—a core part of its $3.5 billion pandemic preparedness plan—in view of the continued threat posed by new SARS-CoV-2 variants like Omicron.
More details available at https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-expands-partnership-with-sk-bioscience-to-develop-a-variant-proof-vaccine-against-sars-cov-and-sars-cov-2-variants/ ; https://cepi.net/news_cepi/cepi-and-sk-bioscience-to-develop-next-generation-covid-19-vaccine/
