CEPI
Oslo-based Coalition funding pandemic vaccine development and manufacturing readiness across outbreak-prone diseases.
CEPI moved a Bundibugyo-specific Ebola vaccine into trial production on 31 July 2026, the first candidate purpose-built for this species rather than adapted from Zaire ebolavirus shots that offer it no protection.
Last refreshed: 31 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
With four Bundibugyo vaccine bets and 1,000 DRC cases, can CEPI close a trial before the outbreak peaks?
Timeline for CEPI
Awarded up to US$16.5m for a Bundibugyo vaccine trial
Pandemics and Biosecurity: CEPI awards Minapharm US$16.5m for EbolaMentioned in: 70,000 Ervebo doses, 20,000 as a trial
Pandemics and BiosecurityAwarded US$4.17 million to four cross-reactivity studies
Pandemics and Biosecurity: $4.17m to test Zaire vaccine antibodiesCommitted up to US$50 million to the programme
Pandemics and Biosecurity: Moderna doses first human in TruroAnnounced up to $8.5m for the Bundibugyo-specific candidate
Pandemics and Biosecurity: CEPI puts a Bundibugyo vaccine in trialsBackground
CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations) is an Oslo-based international partnership founded in 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, backed initially by Norway, India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the World Economic Forum. It finances vaccine research and development against pathogens on the WHO R&D Blueprint priority list, working towards its 100 Days Mission: authorising a vaccine within 100 days of a new pandemic pathogen being identified.
CEPI typically hedges across multiple vaccine platforms rather than backing a single candidate, reflecting the reality that no platform is pre-validated against an emerging pathogen. Its Bundibugyo Ebola portfolio spans four candidates and three platforms funded between 1 and 9 June 2026, while its earlier rescue of Moderna's H5N1 mRNA trial, after US federal funding was withdrawn, made it the sole funder of record for the most advanced H5N1 vaccine candidate globally.
Running both tracks at once, an active Ebola species with no prior countermeasure and an mRNA platform abandoned by its original government funder, is the most operationally concrete test yet of whether the 100 Days Mission model can deliver under real outbreak pressure.
CEPI funds four Bundibugyo vaccine bets
CEPI committed $62 million across three Bundibugyo ebolavirus vaccine platforms on 1 June 2026: rVSV seed stock for IAVI, an mRNA candidate for Moderna, and a ChAdOx1 candidate for Oxford manufactured at the Serum Institute of India. A fourth rVSV candidate followed on 9 June, taking the portfolio to roughly $63.7 million across four candidates, a deliberate hedge given that no platform had yet been validated against this species.
That hedge produced its first result on 31 July, when CEPI announced the first vaccine built specifically for Bundibugyo Ebola, developed by Hilleman Laboratories, had entered trial production.
CEPI becomes sole funder of Moderna trial
CEPI committed $54.3 million in May 2026 to continue Moderna's Phase 3 mRNA-1018 H5N1 vaccine trial after the US Department of Health and Human Services pulled its federal funding, becoming the sole funder of record for the most advanced H5N1 mRNA candidate globally. First participants had been dosed on 21 April 2026, the furthest any mRNA H5N1 candidate has progressed.
The rescue matters beyond one trial: H5N1 is widening its mammalian host range in US dairy cattle, and a completed trial would hand CEPI a validated mRNA platform adaptable to a pandemic strain.