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France has had a €5 billion state aid programme approved by the European Commission, to support research and development, testing, upscaling infrastructures and production of coronavirus relevant products. Rapid construction of manufacturing sites for these products will also be backed by the state aid. Cross-border collaborations in R&D projects are to be incentivised through a 15 per cent bonus when projects include organisations from another country, or when the project is supported by more than one member state.
Following an announcement in March, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and German vaccines developer CureVac have agreed a €75 million loan deal, to support clinical development of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and to expand manufacturing capacity at the production facility in Tübingen. The loan, to be drawn down in three tranches against certain milestones, comes from the Infectious Diseases Finance Facility of the Horizon 2020 research programme. Last month, the German government announced it is to invest €300 million in CureVac, as part of its Corona Economic Stimulus and Future Technologies Package
A Rapid Action Coronavirus Earth observation (RACE) tool launched today by the European Commission and the European Space Agency will use data from the EU’s Copernicus satellites to study the impact of the lockdown and monitor post-lockdown recovery, looking at environmental parameters such as air and water quality changes, economic and human activities and agricultural productivity. As one example, global commodity markets have been strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with sharp declines in the price of crude oil. As a consequence, tankers carrying crude oil have been reported to be anchored around the main oil refineries in Europe, unable to discharge their cargo due to a lack of storage capacity in refineries and storage tanks. Using the RACE dashboard it is possible to track ships, which are the primary transport vehicle for most commodities, and which can be directly observed and categorised with the ESA satellite data.
Research company Digital Science published a report on how COVID-19 is changing research culture, in which it analyses publication trends, regional preferences of research topics, collaboration patterns, and the institutions which have produced the highest volume of COVID-19 research. The report shows how preprint papers, which have not been peer-reviewed, have gained a growing importance due to the crisis, and represented about a quarter of research studies at the beginning of May. Publication of COVID-19 research began in China and migrated towards western countries, tracking the spread of the virus itself. The US and EU have now surpassed China in terms of quantity of papers, but Chinese research seems to be more often cited.
The institution with most published COVID-19 research is the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China, followed by Harvard University and Oxford University. There is evidence that the pandemic has put constraints on international collaboration: while there were papers with international co-authors, most published COVID-19 research is by researchers within countries.
The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has announced five winners will receive up to £10,000 each to observe environmental and societal impacts of the pandemic. The awards will ensure NERC-funded researchers can continue to make their science accessible to the public throughout the pandemic, said Alison Robinson of NERC. “The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our interaction with the environment and environmental science,” she said. “This time has also demonstrated that tackling environmental challenges remain as important as ever to us all.”
GAVI, the vaccine alliance, launched the Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for COVID-19 Vaccines, a new financing instrument to provide access vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, as the first building block towards a global mechanism to ensure equitable access to any approved COVID-19 vaccines. A total of $567 million was raised at a Global Vaccine Summit on Thursday in seed money from 12 donors for AMC. Gavi has an initial goal of raising $2 billion, which will be enough for Gavi-supported countries to immunise health care workers and high-risk individuals, and to create a stockpile of doses to be deployed where needed most. Also on Thursday, UK pharma company Astrazeneca reached a $750 million agreement with Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to support the manufacturing, procurement and distribution of 300 million doses of the vaccine it is co-developing with Oxford University, with delivery starting by the end of the year.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission said there have been more than 2,500 downloads of Galileo Green Lane app, developed to ease traffic flow through the EU’s borders during COVID-19 lockdowns. The app uses global positioning services of the EU’s Galileo satellite network to monitor and facilitate the free movement of freight. For drivers and national authorities, the app shows how traffic is flowing at borders and how long waiting times are. Transport commissioner Adina Vălean, said, “While borders were closing and lockdowns looming we opened Green Lanes, thus preventing a supply chain crisis. The Galileo Green Lane app is a direct result of EU coordination in the transport sector.”
The OECD released a policy brief addressing the current status of COVID-19 vaccine and drug candidates in the R&D pipeline, and several recommendations for R&D policies. The report suggests there is a need for both “push and pull” mechanisms to ensure R&D projects are completed. Push mechanisms in the form of research grants should support projects even in late-stage phases, while pull mechanisms, could be prizes or guaranteed purchase agreements on completion of project. The recommendations are made in light of the fact that many SARS-CoV-1 research projects were abandoned in 2003, once the epidemic was under control. Results from those projects would have given a head start in research for SARS-CoV-2, which is why smart R&D policy management is needed.
Other recommendations in the OECD report are to invest in large-scale manufacturing in parallel with the clinical development of vaccines and drugs, and to protect for intellectual property rights while promoting equitable access with non-exclusive, royalty-free licensing.
The European Commission has approved a €200 million Irish aid scheme to support investment in research and development, testing and production of products relevant to the coronavirus outbreak. The support will take the form of direct grants and repayable advances, and will be open to companies with more than ten employees operating in the manufacturing and/or internationally traded services sectors. The aim is to enhance and accelerate the development and the production of products directly relevant to COVID-19, including vaccines, hospital and medical equipment and drugs, as well as the development of processes for the efficient production of these products.
The commission also approved a €250 million scheme to support micro and small enterprises affected by the coronavirus outbreak under the emergency state aid provisions. The aim is to provide liquidity support to micro and small companies that have experienced loss of turnover due to the coronavirus outbreak.
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