Pandemic

Addressing Market Failures: The Role of CEPI in Bridging the Innovation Gap to Prevent the Next Pandemic

Volta Paper Blog Image 08SEP21

The global response to COVID-19 not only shows that the world was ill-prepared to prevent and respond to a pandemic caused by a novel respiratory pathogen, but also that there are an array of system and market failures in global health research and development (R&D). Solving for these failures ― and building a ready and sustainable R&D ecosystem for pandemic preparedness ― will be critical to advancing global health security and preventing future infectious disease outbreaks from becoming the next deadly and costly pandemic.

Addressing Market Failures: The Role of CEPI in Bridging the Innovation Gap to Prevent the Next Pandemic, produced by Volta Capital, Pandemic Action Network, and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC), examines global health R&D failures to help inform policy and funding decisions to bolster preparedness and response for emerging pandemic threats. In particular, the paper considers the unique role of CEPI in addressing some of these failures, its strengths and challenges in the COVID-19 response, and the role it can play through its new strategy to bolster future epidemic and pandemic preparedness.

Key findings of the paper include:

  • Longstanding and persistent market and systems failures in global health R&D, especially for vaccines against novel pathogens, have left the world at grave risk of deadly and costly pandemics.
  • The world cannot wait for the next pandemic to bolster investments in R&D and preparedness for emerging infectious disease threats.
  • CEPI has a key role to play in a better prepared global R&D ecosystem.

To learn more, read the full analysis Addressing Market Failures: The Role of CEPI in Bridging the Innovation Gap to Prevent the Next Pandemic and the accompanying policy brief.

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