Research Triangle Park, N.C. – November 2, 2021 – The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Q2 Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of IQVIA and a leading clinical trial laboratory services organization, today announce that Q2 Solutions’ facility in Beijing, China, has joined CEPI’s centralized laboratory network. This network is the largest and only global group launched to harmonize the assessment of COVID-19 vaccines currently undergoing preclinical and clinical trials. Q2 Solutions (Beijing) Co., Ltd. becomes the eleventh laboratory to join the network, and the first in East Asia.
The sample testing facility will follow the other CEPI-supported laboratories, all using the same methodologies and key reagents—substances used to carry out a scientific test—to measure and compare the type of immune responses and magnitude that the COVID-19 vaccines under development generate over time.
This is in contrast to the typical vaccine evaluation process, where the immune response of a vaccine candidate is assessed using different tools and measurements at individual testing sites, allowing for inter-laboratory variability. Following a centralized approach, standardizes testing of COVID-19 vaccines to ensure uniformity in assessment and allows researchers and regulators to accurately identify the most promising candidates.
A global effort to assess COVID-19 vaccine performance data
CEPI’s centralized laboratory network first opened to all COVID-19 vaccine developers—both CEPI-funded and non-CEPI-funded—free of charge1, in October, 2020, for the analysis of vaccine clinical trial samples, up to Phase III studies. The program is part of CEPI’s US $3.5 billion plan, to mitigate the immediate threat of COVID-19, while also looking to advance countermeasures and networks to dramatically reduce or even eliminate future epidemics and pandemics.
Other laboratories, already part of the group, are located in Bangladesh, Canada, India, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, UK, and the US. Q2 Solutions Vaccine Testing Laboratory in the US joined the network last year.
To date, over 45 COVID-19 vaccine developers have now used the service, with more than 15,000 clinical trial samples submitted for testing. Data obtained from the tests performed by laboratories in the network, including Q2 Solutions’ Beijing facility, will inform COVID-19 vaccine developers as to whether their candidate could advance to later-stage clinical trials and could also guide regulatory decisions. Results will also be used by CEPI to inform and advance the CEPI COVID-19 vaccine portfolio by providing quick and accurate evaluation of its candidate vaccines.
Dr. Melanie Saville, director of Vaccine R&D at CEPI, said: “CEPI’s centralized laboratory network is the largest effort to uniformly and accurately assess the performance of COVID-19 vaccines currently undergoing preclinical and clinical testing – and it is thought to be the first time a project like this has been created at such speed and scale, globally.”
“I am delighted to today welcome Q2 Solutions’ facility in Beijing to this group of dedicated testing partners. Through this work, we hope to welcome more COVID-19 vaccine developers within China and East Asia to use our service to assess their candidates. Their work will also support our ultimate goal, across the network, to identify the most promising COVID-19 vaccines to alleviate the global suffering brought on by this devastating pandemic.”
Brian O’Dwyer, Q2 Solutions chief executive officer said: “We are very excited to expand our global capabilities to support the CEPI network with the addition of a second Q2 Solutions Laboratory facility, located in China. Our Beijing laboratory has been actively supporting large vaccine trials and we look forward to bringing that experience, knowledge, and capability to the CEPI network. The addition of vaccine assays in partnership with CEPI will further enhance our vaccine franchise globally and locally.”
Since July 2021, some laboratories within the network have started assessing and harmonizing incoming data on the performance of multiple COVID-19 vaccines against identified variants of concern - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta.
CEPI has, to date, provided up to US $17.5 million in funding to support the running of the network, including costs of the expanded variant testing program.
About Q2 Solutions
Q2 Solutions is a leading global clinical trial laboratory services organization that provides comprehensive testing, project management, supply chain, biorepository, biospecimen, and consent tracking solutions. Leveraging our next generation technologies, we deliver agile and precise services designed to meet the diverse needs of our clients. We provide scientific expertise and innovative solutions for ADME, bioanalytical, genomics, vaccines, and central laboratory services, including flow cytometry, anatomic pathology, immunoassay, molecular and companion diagnostics, with meticulous regional and global clinical trial implementation support and high-quality data delivery. At Q2 Solutions, our work is rooted in research, grounded in collaboration, and guided by our passion to turn the hope of patients and caregivers around the world into the help they need. To learn more, visit www.q2labsolutions.com.
About IQVIA
IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) is a leading global provider of advanced analytics, technology solutions, and clinical research services to the life sciences industry. IQVIA creates intelligent connections across all aspects of healthcare through its analytics, transformative technology, big data resources and extensive domain expertise. IQVIA Connected Intelligence™ delivers powerful insights with speed and agility — enabling customers to accelerate the clinical development and commercialization of innovative medical treatments that improve healthcare outcomes for patients. With approximately 77,000 employees, IQVIA conducts operations in more than 100 countries.
IQVIA is a global leader in protecting individual patient privacy. The company uses a wide variety of privacy-enhancing technologies and safeguards to protect individual privacy while generating and analyzing information on a scale that helps healthcare stakeholders identify disease patterns and correlate with the precise treatment path and therapy needed for better outcomes. IQVIA’s insights and execution capabilities help biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders tap into a deeper understanding of diseases, human behaviors and scientific advances, in an effort to advance their path toward cures. To learn more, visit www.iqvia.com.
About CEPI
CEPI is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organizations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines against future epidemics. Prior to COVID-19 CEPI’s work focused on developing vaccines against Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever virus and Chikungunya virus – it has over 20 vaccine candidates against these pathogens in development. CEPI has also invested in new platform technologies for rapid vaccine development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).
During the current pandemic, CEPI initiated multiple programs to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and its variants with a focus on speed, scale and access. These programs leverage the rapid response platforms developed by CEPI’s partners prior to the emergence of COVID-19 as well as new collaborations. The aim is to advance clinical development of a diverse portfolio of safe and effective COVID-19 candidates and to enable fair allocation to these vaccines worldwide through COVAX.
CEPI’s 5-year plan lays out a $3.5 billion roadmap to compress vaccine development timelines to 100 days, develop a universal vaccine against COVID-19 and other Betacoronaviruses, and create a “library” of vaccine candidates for use against known and unknown pathogens. The plan is available at www.endpandemics.cepi.net.
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1Excluding shipping charges.