AMIIF LAB: Interinstitutional Alliances Against COVID-19
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AMIIF LAB: Interinstitutional Alliances Against COVID-19

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Miriam Bello By Miriam Bello | Senior Journalist and Industry Analyst - Fri, 06/12/2020 - 12:23

The Mexican Association of Pharmaceutical Research Industries (AMIIF) coordinated the second AMIIF LAB: Interinstitutional Alliances Accelerate R&D Against COVID-19, joined by representatives of the leading players in Mexico participating in collaborative alliances against COVID-19. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Novartis, Sanofi and Merck, Sharp & Dohme (MSD) explained what are and the status of the three major global alliances working against COVID-19:

  • Therapeutic Accelerator COVID-19, together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
  • The Coalition for Outbreak Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)
  • The United States Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA-USA)

All three alliances are focused on complementing and articulating solutions against the COVID-19 pandemic through cooperation between academia, governments, the private sector and civil society organizations. Vaccine development can take up to 15 years but through collaboration, all processes can accelerate, to the point of making the world optimistic about having a vaccine within the following 18 months.

These interinstitutional alliances have also achieved, through the shared use of libraries and research data, a multiplied number of developing projects. On June 9, WHO reported 136 vaccine investigations for COVID-19, 10 of them in clinical evaluation or already under clinical trials. Up to date, there are 1,878 clinical studies, 29 of them actively happening in Mexico.

Fernando Cruz, President of Novartis Mexico, explained that 15 companies are participating in the Therapeutic Accelerator COVID-19 with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Welcome Fund and Mastercard, which Novartis is co-chairing. “The focus of this alliance includes the development, manufacturing and delivery of diagnostics, treatments and vaccines,” said Cruz, explaining that the initiative’s focus is on four specific areas: therapeutics, manufacturing ability, clinical studies and approvals and diagnostics. The alliance works in coordination with WHO, government agencies, regulators and pharmaceutical companies, not only to accelerate research but also to reduce financial and technical risks for researchers, whether academic or corporate, and to ensure access to future vaccines and treatments for low-income people.

Javier Jileta, Director General of Civil Society Organizations Liaisons at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke about the participation of the Mexican government in the Coalition for Innovations to Prepare for Epidemics (CEPI). When highlighting the importance of these alliances, he said “they require resources from both sectors for the well-being of nations and humanity. Mexico, being the only Latin American country in CEPI, shows its leadership at the global level to achieve inclusive and prosperous development,” he added.

Sanofi also participates in CEPI. Fernando Sampaio, Director General of Sanofi-Pasteur México, spoke about the company’s and the biopharmaceutical industry’s participation in CEPI saying that this “has allowed paving the way for the development of effective vaccines, improving scientific, manufacturing and regulatory processes. So far, of all the candidate vaccines, 70 percent of those projects come from the private initiative and the remaining 30 percent from the academy and the public sector.”

CEPI is a global association of public, private and civil society organizations created in 2017 to accelerate vaccine development and achieve equitable access to vaccines, especially in low-income countries through a coordinated plan. It has already intervened in epidemics such as MERS, Lassa, Nipah and Ebola. On May 4, the Mexican government joined CEPI to participate in its COVID-19 vaccine efforts.

Patricia Faci, Director of External Relations, Communication and Business Development at Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) Mexico, highlighted that the work the company does jointly with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA-USA), seeks to define the molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 to identify targets for drugs and vaccines. The results of the study will be made available to the global scientific and biomedical community. "We are sure that our industry will develop new tools to contribute to solving the pandemic, which highlights the need for the company and the industry to continue making investments to face these and future health emergencies," said Faci. She added that the alliance that MSD maintains with IAVI is to develop a vaccine, where IAVI's R&D and scientific capabilities are combined with the platform used against Ebola.

Photo by:   AMIIF

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