GSK to join hands with CEPI to develop coronavirus vaccine

When the death toll in coronavirus affected Wuhan, Hubei Province, China has crossed 50,000, there is an emergency to develop vaccine and medicine to counter the lethal outbreak of the types of respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

At this juncture, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British multinational pharmaceutical company has collaborated with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop coronavirus vaccine.

As per the information, GSK will make its “pandemic adjuvant technology platform” available for vaccines that support more production of vaccine doses and hence, this means it could be made available to more number of people.

An adjuvant is generally added to the vaccines to augment the immunity response. Along with creating stronger immunity, it helps to fight against infections than the vaccine alone.

The GSK’s adjuvant technology has been previously successfully used in the pandemic flu setting. Through this technology, one can produce more doses of the vaccine by using only small quantities of the vaccine antigen. Hence, this feature of it is of great advantage in pandemic like emergency situations.

CEPI will act as a mediator between GSK and entities funded by CEPI who are interested in testing their vaccine platform with GSK’s vaccine platform. The first of such an agreement has been signed between GSK and the British drugmaker and Australia’s University of Queensland.

This collaboration will enable the researchers at The University of Queensland to conduct important preclinical experiments to test the vaccine’s effectiveness.

We hope that this agreement helps to speed up the process of vaccine development and gives the people of China and other coronavirus affected regions a huge relief from the threat of this deadly disease.