CEPI to grant $14 mn for trial of Bharat Biotech's Chikungunya vaccine

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations(CEPI) has signed an agreement to fund a consortium of Hyderabad-based vaccine maker Bharat Biotech (BBIL) and the International vaccine Institute (IVI) to fund up to $14 million to advance the development of a Chikungunya vaccine.

The consortium will be further supported with a grant of up to $2 million from the Indian Government's Ind-CEPI initiative, which will fund the setting up of manufacturing facilities for the vaccine in India, and subsequent manufacture of clinical trial material.

The investment is part of CEPI's third call for proposals launched in January 2019. Since the launch of this call, over $80 million of CEPI core funding has been committed to three Chikungunya vaccine candidates and two Rift Valley Fever vaccine candidates.

Bharat Biotech's BBV87 vaccine is an inactivated whole-virion vaccine based on a strain derived from an East, Central, and South African genotype. The vaccine completed standard pre-clinical studies, and an optimum immune response was elicited by the adjuvant vaccine in phase-1 trials in India, according to the company.

"Chikungunya continues to be a threat to public health in countries around the globe. It is a painful and debilitating disease for which there is no licensed vaccine or treatment. Through this partnership with Bharat Biotech and IVI we will accelerate the clinical development of the Chikungunya vaccine candidate, with the aim of producing a vaccine and making it accessible to those most affected by the disease," CEPI chief executive officer Richard Hatchett said.

In addition to manufacturing, the partnering agreement will finance a multi-center phase 2/3 adaptive clinical trial to be conducted by IVI in Colombia, Panama and Thailand and will provide crucial data about the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine candidate.