Moderna and other groups get $60 million to develop Ebola vaccine
By Jennifer Rigby, Mariam Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole
June 1 (Reuters) – Global health agency CEPI will give about $60 million to Moderna and two other groups to speed up work to develop a vaccine against Ebola Bundibugyo, the deadly virus that is ravaging the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations was one of the first investors to help develop vaccines during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CEPI chief Richard Hatchett told Reuters it was possible for vaccines against Ebola Bundibugyo to be ready for trials within a few months.
There is no approved vaccine or treatment for Ebola Bundibugyo.
“Every day counts in the race against this deadly disease,” Hatchett said.
He also said the promise of vaccines “on the not-too-distant horizon” would help start conversations about who would buy the vaccine and finance any rollout.
But he warned that vaccine development could be unpredictable and the difficult security situation in eastern Congo could complicate trials.
The outbreak has caused 282 confirmed cases, including 42 deaths, and nearly 1,100 suspected cases, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
In addition to the deaths in Congo, nine cases, including one death, have been confirmed in Uganda.
Global health institutions declared the outbreak a public health emergency.
EARLY CLINICAL TESTS OF MODERNA VACCINE CANDIDATE
CEPI has committed up to $50 million to support preclinical development and early clinical testing of Moderna’s investigational Ebola Bundibugyo vaccine candidate.
Moderna said the funding will also support manufacturing and progression to later-stage trials if early data is positive.
CEPI also said it would invest up to $8.6 million for a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, and an initial investment of up to $3.2 million for a vaccine developed by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
IAVI’s single-dose Bundibugyo vaccine candidate uses the same technology as Ervebo, Merck’s approved vaccine for the Zaire strain, the first strain of Ebola discovered in what was then Zaire and is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It has been shown to have a survival benefit in animal studies.
Oxford’s candidate, ChAdOx1 Bundibugyo, uses the same technology as the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Hatchett said Oxford and Serum showed last year in a different outbreak — Rift Valley Fever in Mauritania and Senegal — that they could have doses ready for trial in about six weeks, much faster than typical timelines that have spanned years in the past.
Once a vaccine is developed, the next challenge is ensuring access to vaccines where they are needed, Hatchett said. He said 300,000 doses of Ervebo were needed to control the 2018-2020 Ebola Zaire outbreak in a similar region of Congo.
Separately, global vaccine alliance Gavi pledged up to $50 million to the Ebola response on Friday, and the World Bank Pandemic Fund announced grants of up to $220.6 million.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Vijay Kishore, Devika Syamnath and Barbara Lewis)
