Vaccine innovation in the UK: SMEs and national capabilities
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The UK Government is supporting the development of COVID-19 vaccines, including two innovative UK vaccine candidates. In this article, we describe the history of these candidates and introduce innovative small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and national capabilities that are working to combat the current pandemic and improve the UK’s vaccine capabilities in preparation for future outbreaks.
THE 2013-2016 West African Ebola outbreak prompted an evaluation of the UK Government’s response to infectious diseases with epidemic potential, which resulted in the creation of the UK Vaccine Network (UKVN). The UKVN is a £110m project that is part of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) Global Health Security programme. It supports the development of new vaccines and vaccine technologies to tackle diseases that represent emergent epidemic threats, for the benefit of people in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC