WHAT IS A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP?
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) consist of joint initiatives between the private sector (i.e., vaccine companies, small-medium enterprises…) and public sector (i.e., universities, public health institutes, research organizations) in which resources and responsibilities are shared in order to achieve a common goal. The PPP model is posed as one relevant pathway to advance the post-licensure vaccine effectiveness assessment in Europe based on a joint mandate to monitor vaccinations programmes for Public health institutes and vaccines benefits risks for companies . This cooperative arrangement should be under tailored governance models, which clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders, ensure complete transparency of their interactions and guarantee robustness and scientific value of the studies performed.
COVIDRIVE is a PPP that comprises vaccine companies and small-medium enterprises as private partners and a variety of different public partners- public health institutes, and non-profit organizations.
Benefits of Public–Private Partnership
Past and present health crises have highlighted that an efficient collaboration between the public and private sectors is essential to address the “big problems”. The main benefit of a PPP is that the public and private sectors share resources (e.g., economic funds, health infrastructure, knowledge and experience in disease and related vaccine and study designs, patients data and samples,), risks, responsibilities, and rewards as partners, as well as create greater network of experts with different insights with multicultural spirit.
COVIDRIVE Governance
COVIDRIVE is a PPP funded by the Vaccine Company partners leveraging health capacities from public partners and sites.
It follows key guiding principles for public-private collaboration aiming to:
- promote scientific exchanges between several stakeholders with various expertise and experience
- optimally steer joint efforts towards the desired outcome within the time and resource constraints
- allow efficient decision-making, and to guarantee scientific integrity of the study results and good quality standards.
COVIDRIVE Governance structure is reflected in the following diagram:
COVIDRIVE is based on the following principles:
- The Steering committee decides on the study platform strategic direction, allocations of funds and resources for the CVE studies.
The steering committee is composed of representatives from COVIDRIVE partners. Decision authority is split equally between non-industry and vaccine companies. - Master scientific and technical documents are developed by scientific experts from COVIDRIVE partners.
- Scientific review of the master and study specific scientific documents is overseen by the Independent Scientific Committee (ISC) (see section below for ISC members).
- Quality control management and audit of the partnership and studies are overseen by the Quality assurance and audit committee (QAAC), composed of quality assurance experts from the vaccine companies.
- At the study level, decision making and study conduct are the responsibilities of the corresponding Study Team (ST).
- Data collection is carried out at several independently operating study sites which constitute the study network. P95 is the sponsor of the CVE studies. Sites remains owners of their data. Vaccine companies’ partners are not permitted access to the data or involvement in the conduct of the studies.
For more details, check our Governance Charter Version 6.0
For more details, check our Governance Charter, click here
Data collection is carried out at several independently operating study sites which constitute the study network. P95 is the sponsor of the CVE studies. Sites remains owners of their data. Vaccine companies’ partners are not permitted access to the data or involvement in the conduct of the studies.
Independent Scientific Committee
To increase the robustness and transparency of the scientific results produced by the partnership, the scientific leadership of COVIDRIVE is supported by an Independent Scientific Committee (ISC). The ISC’s mandate is to review and provide recommendations on the master and study-specific scientific documents.
The current members of COVIDRIVE ISC are:
Head of Epidemiology of The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an international alliance to finance and coordinate the development of new vaccines for the prevention and containment of infectious disease epidemics. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist with broad expertise in global health, poverty-related diseases and vaccinology in low- to middle-income countries. She holds a PhD and Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S., and a Master’s degree in Health Sciences from the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.
Consultant Epidemiologist and former Head of the Immunisation, Hepatitis and Blood Safety Department of Public Health England. She has extensive experience in studies of risks and benefits of vaccination programmes and specific vaccines. Her other interests include seroepidemiology, mathematical modelling, and viral infections in pregnancy. She was a founding member of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety and served as a member of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), chairing working groups on pertussis, polio and influenza.
Director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. He was previously director of US CDC’s Division of Global Protection in Kenya, Co-Principal Investigator of STRIVE (Ebola vaccine trial in Sierra Leone) and lead of the International Epidemiology and Research Team (IERT) of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division. Dr Widdowson joined the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001 with focus on epidemiology and control of rotavirus and norovirus domestically and internationally and the Influenza Division in 2008. His work and that of the IERT team focuses on understanding the epidemiology, burden and prevention of seasonal and pandemic influenza worldwide. Dr Widdowson has authored or co-authored over 220 articles and book chapters mostly on epidemic viruses.
