The development and production of a vaccine have become a global race until a way is found to end the new coronavirus epidemic.

On April 27, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) announced that it has signed a collaboration agreement with Chinese firm Clover Biopharmaceuticals AUS Pty Ltd, with CEPI providing Clover with $3.5 million in initial funding, its ninth global collaboration to co-develop a novel coronavirus vaccine.

The Epidemic Preparedness Innovation Alliance is a new alliance formed with support from the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to prevent and control epidemics by accelerating vaccine development.

The idea to create CEPI arose from a perspective article in the July 23, 2015 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine - "Establishing a Global Vaccine R&D Fund".

The article, co-authored by Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, calls for $2 billion to be raised as start-up funds to establish the foundation.

This funding also brings CEPI's total investment in the development of a novel coronavirus vaccine to $39.6 million, and this initial funding from CEPI will support Clover's preparation and initiation of the human Phase I clinical trial of the novel coronavirus vaccine "COVID-19 S-trimer" in Australia.

"S-Trimer" vaccines are based on the Trimer-Tag proprietary technology platform for protein trimerization to express covalent trimeric fusion protein recombinant antigens that produce coronavirus natural surface antigen S with highly similar protein conformations for use in the development of preventive vaccines.

To date CEPI has provided initial funding and support to Curevac, Inovio, Moderna, Novavax, the University of Hong Kong, the University of Oxford, the University of Queensland, and a consortium led by the Pasteur Institute to advance the development of a novel coronavirus vaccine candidate.

This input is the result of CEPI's Global Call for Novel Coronavirus Vaccine Development, launched in early February 2020, which provides funding for a number of promising technologies that could lead to the rapid development of novel coronavirus vaccines.

Most importantly, these vaccine technology platforms will have the potential for production at scale and the necessary equity of access.

Back on the 23rd, Bill Gates posted on his personal blog about the topic of vaccine development. Asked frequently about when mass vaccination can begin, Gates said it could take as long as 18 months, as short as nine months or as long as nearly two years, and that "the key is the length of the Phase 3 trial, which will fully ensure safety and efficacy."

Bill Gates also said in a recent media interview that countries should prepare vaccine production facilities ahead of time so that vaccines can be put into production as soon as they are successfully developed to avoid wasting time.

A global race against time

In addition to the U.S., European countries are also making a fast run at finding vaccines.

On April 23rd local time, a new coronavirus vaccine developed at the University of Oxford in England began human trials. This comes after UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said at a regular press conference that the UK government would provide £20 million in funding for the project, along with £22.5 million to Imperial College of Technology, which is working on another vaccine.

"The advantages of being the first country in the world to successfully develop a vaccine would be enormous, and we are working for it against all odds," Hancock said at the meeting.

The day before, on April 22, the German Federal Vaccine Institute also announced that Germany has approved the first human trials of a new coronavirus vaccine.

The vaccine, called BNT162, was developed by German biotech company BioNTech and pharmaceutical giant Myriad and will be given to 200 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 55.

In a report released in early April, the Consortium for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) showed that, as of April 8, there were 115 vaccine projects in various stages of development, of which 78 were confirmed for trial and five were in the clinical phase. This global vaccine research and development competition are like the vaccine world's "youth have you", fighting for every minute and second just to "get out" early.

Paul Stoffels, the chief scientist at pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, said in a media interview earlier this month, "In such a short time, we've never had so many resources."

Johnson & Johnson announced at the end of March that it would spend $1 billion to accelerate vaccine research and increase production, with $456 million coming from the US government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

As of April 22, the U.S. government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has invested $483 million to expand vaccine lines for medical companies.

China leads the way

And in this increasingly feverish vaccine race, Chinese vaccines continue to take the lead in clinical trials.

Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Peking University's First Hospital, revealed on the 27th that the Chinese government has supported the development of a new coronavirus vaccine program with five routes, including adenovirus vaccine, inactivated vaccine and nucleic acid vaccine, all of which are now in orderly progress.

Among them, the adenovirus vaccine developed by academician Chen Wei's team, the two inactivated vaccines developed by China Bio Wuhan Biological Products Research Institute and Beijing Kexing Zhongwei Biotechnology Co.

Previously, on the afternoon of April 14, China Bio completed the first injection of the world's first novel inactivated coronavirus vaccine. In addition to the adenovirus vector vaccine undergoing Phase II clinical trials, the new coronavirus inactivation vaccine has also begun clinical trials, accelerating the vaccine race again.

Compared to previous mRNA vaccines, the industry generally expects more from inactivated vaccines due to safety concerns, several vaccine industry sources said.

Gao Fu, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also said publicly on the 23rd that the new coronavirus vaccine is expected to be put into emergency use in September this year, and that if the outbreak is repeated on a large scale, the vaccine, which is still in phase II or III clinical trials, may be used on specific populations such as medical workers.

But he also stressed that it all depends on the current research and development process, and that developers should ensure that the vaccine is safe and effective.

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Special Report: Fighting The New Coronavirus