The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI) was officially launched at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on January 18 2017, “in response to expert reports into the 2013-16 Ebola outbreak, calling for a new system to stimulate vaccine development based on collective action and partnerships across sectors and countries”.

The are stated to be “a new alliance to finance and coordinate the development of new vaccines to prevent and contain infectious disease epidemics”.  It is structured as a “global coalition to create new vaccines for emerging infectious diseases” “for which no vaccines have been created” and prepare for “Disease X.

CEPI is a public-private collaboration with it founding partners the governments of Germany, Japan, Norway and India, the B&M Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, plus Pharma companies: GSK, Pfizer, J&J, Merck & Sanofi. The Chairperson of CEPI is Australia’s Jane Halton [1, 2]

CEPI is instrumental in the COVAX vaccine rollout, plus formed a partnership with CSL and University of Queensland to bring COVID-19 vaccine to market.

On September 5, 2020, just 9 months after launch they put a call out for proposals for vaccines that can reduce development time.