Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced that it had signed an advance purchase agreement (APA) with Clover Biopharmaceuticals for its SCB-2019 protein-based adjuvanted vaccine candidate against COVID-19. The agreement will make up to 414 million doses available to participants of the COVAX Facility.
Under the APA, Gavi commits to purchase, on behalf of the COVAX Facility, 64 million doses to be made available in 2021 and has the option to purchase up to 350 million doses in 2022. Supply of the vaccine is anticipated to commence in Q4 2021, pending WHO EUL. In order to address the rising threat of variants, the agreement also provides the opportunity to access doses of potential variant-adapted vaccine in the future.
“The pandemic continues to evolve, and in order to be best prepared, COVAX’s actively managed, diverse portfolio will be critical to meeting countries’ needs, and protecting against risks such as regulatory delays, variants, and supply constraints,” said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi. “Today’s agreement with Clover Biopharmaceuticals is yet another important step in that direction.”
The COVAX Facility portfolio, administered by Gavi, currently consists of agreements related to 9 vaccines and vaccine candidates – AstraZeneca/Oxford, Clover, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer-BioNTech, SII-Covishield, SII-Covovax, and Sanofi/GSK – with the aim to expand to 10-12 vaccines in total, providing participants access to a diverse range of vaccines suitable for use in varied contexts and settings, and to mitigate against the risk of R&D failures, regulatory delays and supply constraints.
Highlighting the end-to-end nature of COVAX, early investments by Gavi partner and COVAX co-lead the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which administers the COVAX R&D portfolio, were critical to funding development and enabling access to these doses. The development and manufacturing of Clover’s vaccine were accelerated by early, significant funding from CEPI and equitable access commitments were directly linked to this funding – ensuring that vaccine output funded by this investment would be made available for procurement and allocation through the COVAX Facility.
“Today’s announcement of an advanced purchase agreement between Gavi and Clover will secure hundreds of millions of doses – pending an Emergency Use Listing from WHO – for globally fair allocation and will further support low-income and middle-income countries so that they can protect the most vulnerable members of their societies against this deadly virus,” said Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI. “CEPI moved with urgency early on in the pandemic to accelerate the R&D needed to develop safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, at speed. By late Spring 2020, CEPI had established nine COVID-19 vaccine programmes, including an early investment in Clover Biopharmaceuticals to advance their promising protein-based adjuvanted vaccine candidate and to enable equitable access to vaccine output funded by CEPI’s investment.”
Joshua Liang, Chief Executive Officer of Clover Biopharmaceuticals said, “We are grateful for the support from Gavi, CEPI, and other COVAX partners in our joint pursuit of supporting global equitable access of COVID-19 vaccines and helping protect at-risk groups in participating countries. This pandemic continues to have a profound impact on the world, and we remain dedicated to expediting the availability of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate for procurement and global distribution.”