CVR - Coronavirus Vaccines R&D Roadmap

Milestone
5.3.a

Equitable manufacturing distribution

In progress

Establish a framework for equitable distribution for vaccine manufacturing for vaccines against coronaviruses and other pathogens with pandemic potential. 

Progress Highlights

The African Pooled Procurement Mechanism (APPM), supported by Africa CDC’s Platform for Harmonized African Health Products Manufacturing (PHAHM), aims to align Regional Economic Community (REC) pooled procurement systems into a coordinated continental approach. Since 2024, Africa CDC and RECs have convened consultative workshops (including Addis Ababa, 2024 and Kigali, 2025) to strengthen coordination and develop a joint information-sharing platform to address fragmented markets and demand challenges. Endorsed through a 2026 African Union declaration, APPM is being operationalized as a demand aggregation and market-shaping mechanism using long-term offtake arrangements to create predictable markets to support local manufacturing and strengthen supply security

The Pan American Health Organization Revolving Fund is a longstanding regional pooled procurement mechanism that aggregates demand and negotiates vaccine supply across Latin America and the Caribbean. While not directly financing manufacturing, it provides a stable and predictable market for suppliers, supporting the viability of regional production and enabling equitable access across participating countries.

Regional pooled procurement is being explored in Southeast Asia under the ASEAN Vaccine Security and Self-Reliance (AVSSR) agenda, which envisions a future pooled procurement mechanism to align demand and support regional manufacturing. ASEAN has previously used collective financing mechanisms, such as the COVID-19 and Other Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases ASEAN Response Fund, to procure vaccines during health emergencies. Current discussions emphasize pooled procurement as a means to strengthen regional coordination, support locally produced vaccines, and advance health security and supply chain resilience in line with the Pandemic Agreement.

WHO’s i-MCM-Net has supported efforts to strengthen pooled procurement and demand aggregation for emergency medical countermeasures (MCMs). In February 2026, WHO together with EU Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), convened regional entities and partner organizations to discuss improving pooled procurement mechanisms, with a focus on aligning demand across countries and regions, coordinating procurement approaches, and improving access to vaccines and other MCMs during health emergencies, building on related coordination efforts such as the mpox Access and Allocation Mechanism.

UNICEF is a central global actor in vaccine procurement and equitable distribution, aggregating demand and procuring vaccines on behalf of countries and partners such as Gavi-supported programs. It supports routine immunization and pandemic response, including as the lead delivery partner for COVAX during COVID-19, and manages global vaccine stockpiles for outbreak-prone diseases, enabling rapid and equitable access during health emergencies.

The Partnerships for African Vaccine Manufacturing (PAVM), a continental framework led by the African Union and Africa CDC to coordinate vaccine manufacturing, including financing, regulatory harmonization, technology transfer, and pooled procurement, with a goal of achieving 60% local vaccine production by 2040, has evolved into the Platform for Harmonized African Health Products Manufacturing (PHAHM) in 2025. PHAHM operationalizes these objectives by aligning Regional Economic Community pooled procurement mechanisms with the African Pooled Procurement Mechanism (APPM) and supporting shared market intelligence and coordination platforms to address fragmented markets, strengthen demand aggregation, and enable more predictable and equitable access to locally produced health products

The African Manufacturing Market Intelligence & Network Analysis (AMMINA) platform was launched by Africa CDC in 2025 as a data-driven tool designed to map health product manufacturers, capacities, and market dynamics across the continent. Covering more than 700 manufacturers and 2,500 products in its initial phase, AMMINA aims to strengthen regional manufacturing by improving market transparency, enabling investment decisions, supporting intra-African trade, and facilitating coordination among Member States, manufacturers, and partners.

The Eastern Mediterranean Region flagship initiative on equitable access to medical products (2024) outlines a regional strategy to strengthen procurement and supply systems, local manufacturing, and regulatory capacity. The initiative includes the phased development of a regional pooled procurement mechanism to improve affordability, strengthen supply resilience, and support equitable access to vaccines and other health products, with implementation planned over 2024–2028.

The African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator (AVMA), established in 2024 by Gavi  in partnership with the African Union and Africa CDC, is a market-shaping mechanism designed to support regional vaccine manufacturing in Africa through a combination of catalytic financing and demand incentives. It leverages long-term purchasing signals and pooled demand to create more predictable markets for locally produced vaccines, strengthen supply security, and align manufacturing capacity with equitable access across the continent.

  • In December 2025, the World Bank Group and GAVI signed a Memorandum of Understanding to mobilize at least $2 billion over five years to strengthen immunization, primary healthcare, and regional vaccine manufacturing in Africa aligned with AVMA and the African Union’s manufacturing goals. 

The Health Products Manufacturing Support Platform (HMSP), a partnership of UNITAID, the African Union Development Agency, and WHO’s Local Production and Assistance Unit, advances regional manufacturing and equitable access to vaccines and therapeutics in Africa through technical assistance, capacity building, and funding related to technology, management, operational skills, regulatory systems, and linkages to capital. 

The Global Coalition for Local and Regional Production, Innovation and Equitable Access was established in 2025 at the World Health Assembly, following political commitments under the 2024 G20, as a global platform to promote collaboration across stakeholders through voluntary technology transfer, regulatory cooperation, and knowledge sharing to strengthen regional production and equitable access.

The Regionalized Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative (RVMC), initiated by the World Economic Forum and co-founded by CEPI in 2024, was launched as a global platform to coordinate and expand global vaccine production and equitable access. The RVMC Secretariat is now hosted by CEPI, working through regional partnerships across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia that include Africa CDC, PAHO, and the US National Academy of Medicine.

At the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit, leaders adopted the G7 Hiroshima Vision for Fair Access to Medical Countermeasures (covering vaccines, drugs, and CBRN antidotes) and launched the Medical Countermeasures Delivery Partnership to ensure equitable, inclusive, efficient, affordable, high-quality, accountable, agile, and rapid access worldwide.

The WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2025. Article 10 of the agreement aims at the goal of addressing geographic distribution; articles 11 and 12 address potential pathways for increasing distribution.

In 2025, WHO released the “Strategic plan for coronavirus disease threat management: advancing integration, sustainability, and equity, 2025–2030”, which contains a list of equity considerations “to ensure that the benefits of prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery reach all population groups, especially those at highest risk of severe disease and systemic disadvantage.”

The African Union Roadmap to 2030 includes content focusing on equitable access to vaccines, including efforts to strengthen self-reliance through expanded local vaccine manufacturing and financing. 

In 2024, the Assembly of the African Union convened a high-level session, “Sustainable vaccine manufacturing through end-to-end vaccine research and development projects in Africa.” A major focus was advancing an end-to-end, Africa-led manufacturing ecosystem (AVEC Africa) aligned with PAVM, establishing a continent-level pooled procurement mechanism, broadening PAVM to include medicines and diagnostics, and mobilizing the African Vaccine Manufacturing Accelerator ($1 billion from Gavi) and political leadership, to translate capacity building into equitable vaccine access during outbreaks.

UNITAID issued a briefing note in October 2023, “Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response: access is not an afterthought,” outlining a framework for equitable access to therapeutics in future pandemics and emphasizing the need to integrate access considerations from early R&D through manufacturing and delivery. It highlights key enablers including access-oriented product design, early financing, regional capacity, and coordinated planning to ensure timely and equitable availability in low- and middle-income countries.

CEPI established its commitment to equitable access to vaccine policy through a vision, policy, committee, and frameworkThe Equitable Access Policy embeds equitable access obligations into its vaccine development funding agreements, including provisions related to affordable pricing, manufacturing scale-up, technology transfer, regional manufacturing diversification, and stockpile commitments. Through its Equitable Access Framework, CEPI supports more geographically distributed manufacturing and aims to strengthen equitable global allocation and access to vaccines during epidemics and pandemics, including for low- and middle-income countries.

The “Global market landscape of vaccine manufacturing and procurement” report was published by WHO in 2025, highlighting the complexities of vaccine production and procurement through national, regional, and global lenses.

The ASEAN Vaccine Capacity Survey (AVCS) Assessment Report was published by the ASEAN Secretariat in 2025 (based on 2023 data), providing a regional assessment of vaccine manufacturing and related capacity, including for COVID-19 vaccines, across ASEAN Member States. The report compiles data on existing capabilities to inform regional planning and identify gaps relevant to strengthening vaccine production and preparedness, aligned with broader ASEAN efforts under the AVSSR agenda to improve equitable and timely access to vaccines.

The Regionalized Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative (RVMC) published its inaugural Status Report in November 2025, providing a baseline assessment of regionalized vaccine manufacturing across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The report finds that, despite strong political commitment and growing investment, progress remains uneven and has yet to translate into coordinated implementation, with regional manufacturers supplying only a limited share of demand (e.g., ~1% in Africa). It highlights the need for stronger coordination, predictable demand, and pooled procurement to support sustainable, regionally led manufacturing and equitable access.

A 2025 Africa Regional Dialogue on Global Health Architecture Reform, supported by Wellcome Trust, provides a multi-stakeholder assessment of structural barriers to equitable access, identifying fragmented financing, donor dependence, weak institutional capacity, and gaps in manufacturing and coordination as key constraints. The analysis highlights the need for stronger regional alignment across financing, manufacturing, and procurement systems to support more sustainable and equitable access to vaccines and other health products.