UK sets up taskforce to 'accelerate' the development of a coronavirus vaccine
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The UK’s business secretary Alok Sharma has announced the government has set-up a taskforce to accelerate the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
The move ramps-up UK efforts to find a vaccine to the potentially deadly infection with the country already the biggest contributor to the international Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
The government is also determined to speed-up construction of what will be the UK's first vaccines manufacturing innovation centre in Harwell which, it is hoped, will help create the capacity to develop and mass produce vaccines.
Meanwhile, the taskforce will be led by the UK’s chief scientific officer Sir Patrick Vallance and deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam and will comprise industry, academia and regulators among others.
The role of the taskforce will be to:
- Support progress across all stages of vaccine development and at pace
- Back Britain's most promising research, positioning the UK as a leader in clinical vaccine testing and manufacturing
- Co-ordinate with regulators to facilitate trials which are both rapid and well-supervised
- Work with industry in the UK and internationally so we're in a position to manufacture vaccines at scale
Mr Sharma said: “We will defeat this invisible enemy but now is not the time to let up. The risks still persist not only for yourselves, but for the people around you so we must stay vigilant.
“One of the ways that we can defeat this virus is a vaccine just as Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in the 18th century, we need to apply the best of British scientific endeavour to the search for the coronavirus vaccine.”
