VRI coordinator of the CARE project – Corona accelerated R&D in Europe

Yves Lévy, executive director of the Vaccine Research Institute (VRI), is the PI and Coordinator of the CARE project with the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) – Corona accelerated R&D in Europe – working on a drug treatment solution against SARS-CoV-2 virus. 

Care is one of the eight projects selected by Innovative Medicines Initiative fast-track Call for funding bringing together 37 partners from 11 different European countries including academic laboratories among which VRI-Inserm, Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The goal of this 5-years project, is to develop therapeutics for the current COVID pandemic as well as future coronavirus outbreaks. The objective is to identify candidates among existing drugs that could be effective as treatments for the COVID-19 pandemic (drug repurposing), and develop new drugs and antibodies specially designed to tackle the SARS-CoV-2 virus. After extensive testing in the laboratory, the project will advance the most promising drug candidates to clinical trials in humans in Europe.