On May 11, 2020, Novavax announced that the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) had committed to investing up to $384 million of additional funding, on top of $4 million it invested in March, to advance clinical development of NVX-CoV2373, Novavax coronavirus vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2.

The additional funding from CEPI also supported rapid scale-up of the NVX-CoV2373 vaccine antigen, as well as Novavax proprietary Matrix-Mﾙ adjuvant, which was expected to enhance immune responses by stimulating high levels of neutralizing antibodies.

In addition, the CEPI funding allowed Novavax to dramatically increase its large-scale manufacturing capacity for both antigen and adjuvant in multiple locations.