Developing an Evidence Generation Platform for Therapeutics with a focus on Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs)

CEPI's vision is "creating a world in which epidemics and pandemics are no longer a threat to humanity". We were established with a mission to accelerate the development of vaccines, but we know that vaccines alone are not sufficient to achieve this vision. COVID-19 uncovered major gaps and opportunities in the therapeutics preparedness and response landscape, including: - A serious gap in end-to-end coordination - Fragility of upstream research efforts, including short-lived industry interest and insufficient access-friendly funding - Specific gaps along the value chain in: evidence generation, host-directed therapeutics, manufacturing scale-up, epidemic- and pandemic-ready policy and regulation, and advocacy for epidemic- and pandemic- specific procurement and country-readiness mechanisms We believe the global community would be well served by CEPI expanding into therapeutics. This would maximise the benefit for global health by utilising CEPI's well-regarded existing infrastructure, governance and processes. We propose a step-wise entry into therapeutics, starting with areas where existing CEPI capabilities can provide significant value for Therapeutics: evidence generation. Building on these entry points, CEPI will develop a longer-term strategy for how CEPI can best advance therapeutics preparedness and response, and, in doing so, help create a world in which epidemics and pandemics are no longer a threat to humanity.