The Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government, Patrick Vallance (who is a clinical pharmacologist, and formerly president of research and development a

The Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government, Patrick Vallance (who is a clinical pharmacologist, and formerly president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical multinational), said this in a Government press conference on 17 April: 'The vaccine could come from anywhere. We've got a domestic vaccine discovery programme in the UK which is being supported, absolutely, as fast as we can go, but the vaccine can come from anywhere. GSK and Sanofi have announced they're doing a vaccine together, which is fantastic news. Most of the big companies are doing vaccines. This is going to come from somewhere, we just need to back lots of horses at the moment, and to make sure we're in a great position to access a vaccine when it occurs. And that's why organisations like CEPI are so important as well; to make sure that the world sees this as a way to get a vaccine, and we all need to be part of the same approach to trying to get as many vaccines as we can. And we may need more than one vaccine.' Link to the press conference: https://youtu.be/jWOCpmjdHiw?t=1430 https://youtu.be/jWOCpmjdHiw?t=1430 Some other comments have referred to the Gates Foundation's contribution to developing vaccines; the foundation's involvement in establishing CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), which Vallance referred to, is a significant part of this.