UK Commits £210 Million Toward Global Efforts to Find COVID-19 Vaccine

The UK government said it would contribute £210 million ($255 million) toward international efforts aimed at finding a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, according to a FirstWord report. The funding will be channelled to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which earlier this month warned that without $2 billion in additional funding, the drive to develop a COVID-19 vaccine could be jeopardized. 

A spokesperson for the UK government noted that “future vaccines will be made available at the lowest possible price to the NHS and other countries’ healthcare systems.” 

Meanwhile, the UK also called on all other G20 governments to each pledge $100 million in funding toward the same goal, saying that if they did so, the $2-billion shortfall CEPI warned about “would be met instantly.” It noted that “the UK has already gone beyond its share by committing £250 million ($304 million) to CEPI to date.” 

However, the director of the Wellcome Trust has said the world needs $8 billion to cover the immediate R&D needs of creating and trialing a potential vaccine. 

Meanwhile, clinical testing on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, dubbed ChAdOx1, a chimpanzee adenovirus vaccine vector developed at Oxford University, is slated to begin potentially as early as next month. Earlier this week, global regulators published a report mapping out data requirements for phase 1 COVID-19 vaccine trials.