Clover Biopharmaceuticals Gets $66 Million From CEPI for COVID-19 Vaccine Trial

Chinese drugmaker Clover Biopharmaceuticals has received a $66 million investment from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to support clinical development and manufacturing of its candidate COVID-19 vaccine.

The funding will support early testing and the preparation of sites for a global efficacy trial and will allow Clover to scale up manufacturing capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses per year.

CEPI said it anticipates providing more funding under the deal if early stage clinical development is successful. The coalition said it aims to ensure equitable access to the vaccine for all countries.

The agreement builds on the coalition’s initial $3.5 million investment in Clover in April to support a phase 1 trial of the vaccine in Australia. That trial is evaluating the vaccine with adjuvants from GlaxoSmithKline and Dynavax.

Clover expects to release preliminary results from the phase 1 trial next month and hopes to launch a global phase 2/3 trial by the end of the year (DID, June 22). — Jordan Williams