CEPI bets $384M on No­vavax’s Covid-19 vac­cine — cov­er­ing R&D and man­u­fac­tur­ing in the ground­break­ing race to beat the pan­dem­ic

No­vavax $NVAX got some bad­ly need­ed seed cash from the Coali­tion for Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness In­no­va­tions — CEPI — back in March that al­lowed them to get start­ed on a speedy path­way to de­vel­op­ing a new vac­cine for Covid-19.

To­day is har­vest day.

CEPI is step­ping back up with its largest com­mit­ment to date, back­ing the biotech’s Phase I and Phase II tri­als for NVX-CoV2373 for up to $384 mil­lion while “dra­mat­i­cal­ly” in­creas­ing its pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty for the vac­cine anti­gen as well as the ad­ju­vant need­ed to boost its ef­fi­ca­cy. The mon­ey comes on top of the $4 mil­lion CEPI sent No­vavax to get things go­ing in R&D with­out any de­lays for ne­go­ti­a­tions. And it marks a re­mark­able en­dorse­ment for a biotech which has had its share of clin­i­cal fail­ures to con­tend with.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER