BMGF & Wellcome pledge $300M to fight COVID-19

Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has announced $300 million in pledges from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome to help fund its work on ending the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and its global plan to take the threat of future pandemics off the table. The financial pledges which together contribute towards the coalition’s $3.5 billion fundraising target will help advance CEPI’s efforts to further COVID-19 vaccine R&D through investments in the development of the ‘next generation’ of COVID-19 vaccines, designed to protect against newly emerging variants and for use in low-resource settings. The funding commitments will also provide critical support to ambitious initiatives set out by CEPI in its six-point pandemic preparedness plan to build a future world that is better prepared for emerging infectious disease outbreaks.