CEPI grew out of the widespread conviction that vaccines languishing in R&D could have prevented the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,000 people.
– CEPI is something the world desperately needs, and we’ve been struggling to create it for several years, says John-Arne Røttingen, CEPI’s interim boss.
The alliance hopes to raise enough money in its early years to spend “a couple of hundred million dollars” annually. In addition to considering proposals from independent investigators, CEPI will issue requests for proposals that target specific opportunities.
CEPI’s interim board includes leading public health officials, scientists, vaccine industry executives and reseachers from Centre for global health at the University of Oslo.