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CEPI CEO says Korea can play key role in '100 days mission' for vaccine development

Published: 19 Mar. 2025, 10:00

Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, speaks at an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul on March 14. [YONHAP]

Korea can play a key role in the "100 days mission" for vaccine development for emerging infectious diseases, the chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has said, calling Seoul a "global leader" in pandemic response.

CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett made the remarks in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul on Friday, noting his agency has been discussing holding a joint exercise in Korea in the second half for the global community's push to develop emergency vaccines for infectious diseases within 100 days of an outbreak.

Hatchett was on a two-day trip to Seoul to discuss the matter with the Korean government, the private sector and academic institutions.

"Why Korea? The strong central government, clinical trial capability, strong institutions and private sector partners," Hatchett said of reasons for the ongoing efforts to hold such an exercise in Korea.

"South Korea was a global leader from its excellent response to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and a global leader in its efforts to pursue the 100 days mission."

CEPI's 100 days mission was launched in 2022 to bolster the global community's preparedness for infectious diseases, such as the Ebola virus, the coronavirus and Mpox, as well as possible pandemics in the future.

The mission, adopted by the group of seven and the group of 20 nations, aims to drastically reduce the timeline of emergency vaccine development to 100 days.

It usually takes five to 10 years to develop vaccines for new diseases, and it took about a year to develop a vaccine for Covid-19.

"When we developed vaccines [for Covid-19], it was as fast as that had ever been done, but it was not fast enough," Hatchett said.

A COVID-19 testing center in Suwon , wraps up operation on Dec. 29, 2023. [YONHAP]

He says the still unprecedentedly fast development of the Covid-19 vaccine was done in a "world that was not prepared to do the rapid vaccine development," and that with the lessons learned through the pandemic, the timeline can be further reduced.

CEPI argues many of the more than 8 million people who died during the pandemic might be alive today, had the world achieved the 100 days mission then to develop safe and effective vaccines against Covid-19.

"CEPI will expand the number of pathogen families we have the blueprints for, work with regulators to understand how the prototype vaccines perform on the vaccine platforms they are familiar with, and work to swiftly execute clinical trials when a new vaccine emerges," Hatchett said.

Last year, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) signed a memorandum of understanding with CEPI to cooperate for enhancing preparedness for future pandemics.

CEPI has provided funding of $357 million over the past few years to Korea's private and academic partners, including SK bioscience Co., which developed South Korea's first homegrown Covid-19 vaccine in 2022.

With CEPI's help, SK bioscience has initiated its global clinical trial for a messenger-RNA (mRNA) vaccine project for Japanese encephalitis, a viral brain infection caused by a virus transmitted through mosquito bites.

Hatchett also called for the international community's commitment to efforts to respond to the global health crisis amid growing concerns sparked by the United States' recent withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

With growing political and economic tensions across the world, many countries are reducing their international assistance budgets to add investment in their defense capabilities, negatively affecting the international community's disease prevention efforts, he explained.

"Korea is one of the few countries that are actually making efforts to extend and expand their efforts in this area ... and such investments will provide an opportunity for the country to gain leadership," he said.

The Korean government has provided $33 million in support to CEPI from 2020 to 2023 and sharply increased its budget for official development assistance last year, including $18 million of support for CEPI.

Yonhap