$4.8 Million Award Funds Betacoronavirus Vaccine Development

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Intravacc today announced the latest funding award to advance the development of vaccines that provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 (including its variants) and other Betacoronaviruses, which can be delivered intranasally.

Based in the Netherlands, the CEPI will provide seed funding of up to US$4.8 million to Intravacc, a world leader in translational research and development of preventive and therapeutic vaccines.

CEPI's funding will support the preclinical development and testing of Intravacc's subunit vaccine candidate (Avacc 101), which is based on its Outer Membrane Vesicle (OMV) platform.

This platform will enable the presentation of universal Spike molecules and include "epitopes" that elicit T-cell responses.

This technology has the potential to be rapidly adapted to address outbreaks of disease caused by emerging Betacoronavirus strains and variants and also to protect against pre-emergent Betacoronaviruses (i.e., before they "spillover" from animals to infect humans).

Specifically, the Avacc 101 vaccine candidate will be designed to provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-1, SAR-CoV-2, and MERS-CoV.

"The latest waves of Omicron subvariants in the US, UK, Europe, and elsewhere show that SARS-CoV-2 still poses a serious threat to a still fragile global recovery," stated Dr. Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer, CEPI, in a press release on October 6, 2022.

"To secure the gains we've made, we must continue to develop vaccines that provide broad protection against these variants to mitigate the need for regular variant boosters."

"And which can also provide protection against other, more lethal, coronavirus threats, including MERS-CoV."

"Investing in, initiating the development of, and enabling equitable access to broadly protective coronavirus vaccines should be an integral part of the world's long-term strategy out of the COVID-19 pandemic and defense against future threats."

Today announced the latest funding award under CEPI's US$200 million program.

Including today's announcement, CEPI has recently announced funding for 12 programs to advance the development of vaccines that could provide broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants and other Betacoronaviruses.

The CEPI is committed to equitable access to the vaccines it funds. Therefore, under the terms of the funding agreement, Intravacc has committed to achieving equitable access to the outputs of this project, in line with CEPI's Equitable Access Policy.

Additionally, CEPI, Gavi, and the WHO are co-leading COVAX, with key delivery partner UNICEF, to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines.

CEPI was launched at Davos in 2017 to develop vaccines against future epidemics.

PrecisionVaccinations publishes fact-checked, research-based vaccine news. This announcement was manually translated and curated for mobile readers.