Pandemic ‘Roadmap’ Will Show How To Develop New Vaccines in 100 Days
AMR, Clinical Trials & Digital Health Also Discussed At Oxford G7 Event
Executive Summary
The pharmaceutical industry is a key player in a new partnership that aims to bring the public and private sectors together to address future complex health threats.
A “roadmap” that will set out suggestions for tackling global pandemics, including plans to develop and deploy new vaccines and treatments in just 100 days, is to be presented at a gathering of leaders of the G7 group of countries in the UK on 11 June.
The announcement was made during the 3-4 June meeting of G7 health ministers in Oxford at which the emerging recommendations in the roadmap were discussed by ministers and representatives of life science companies. The roadmap will explain how the ambitions of a new global “Pandemic Preparedness Partnership,” announced by the government in April, are to be achieved.
The partnership met formally for the first time at a two-day, closed-door virtual conference in April. (Also see "UK Gathers Global Leaders For Pandemic Preparedness Project" - Pink Sheet, 21 Apr, 2021.) One of its aims is to advise the UK on what actions will be needed to reduce the time taken to develop and deploy vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for new diseases from more than 300 to 100 days – now dubbed the “100 Days Mission."
“All the participants recognized the crucial importance of sustained political and industry leadership in between outbreaks" – UK government
During the Oxford event the UK government, which currently holds the presidency of the G7, said that new therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics against potential future pathogens "should be part-developed before the next pandemic starts, involving sustained innovation and collaboration between large and small companies, academic and medical researchers, regulators and global health bodies."
Topics discussed included how to overcome challenges to the development, production and deployment of vaccines, medicines and diagnostics at scale, and “effective sharing of data, methods and standards to facilitate robust clinical trials.” Participants also addressed issues of global health security, antimicrobial resistance, clinical trials and digital health.
“All the participants recognized the crucial importance of sustained political and industry leadership in between outbreaks and of the public and private sectors working together to tackle the most complex global health threats,” the government stated.
A 'Significant Milestone'
It said this “collective aspiration” to support the 100 Days Mission represented a “significant milestone” that would ensure the industry was part of a “robust collaboration alongside governments, international organisations and academia.”
Over the coming months and years this collaboration would work towards a common goal: protecting people from future pandemics by developing and deploying “safe, targeted and effective diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines at scale, with a good safety profile,” the government added.
“This meeting is the starting point for partnership between industry and government to achieve this mission together. Further engagement will take place over coming months.”
It said that the joint input of industry leaders and G7 health ministers at the Oxford meeting had been “a key step in the preparations to present the pandemic preparedness roadmap at the UK-hosted G7 Leaders’ Event at Carbis Bay, in Cornwall, on 11 June.”
The G7 members are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the UK, plus the EU.