CEPI: 100 Day Mission Vaccine Development; What Does it Take? | Stig Tollefsen | EAGxNordics 2025

This session explores the ambitious global initiative to develop safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of a pandemic threat's identification. Stig Tollefsen from CEPI discusses the strategic innovations required to achieve this mission, including creating vaccine libraries, establishing global clinical trial networks, and expanding manufacturing capabilities. Learn how this paradigm shift could dramatically reduce pandemic impacts—potentially saving millions of lives and trillions in economic losses—and what scientific and logistical breakthroughs are needed to transform our pandemic response capabilities from reactive to proactive.

Stig Tollefsen is Lead at Research and Development Innovations department at Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and is overseeing multiple call for proposals in CEPI, among them several rounds of COVID-19 vaccine development calls. He established and launched CEPI’s TechTalks platform as an interactive meeting platform between vaccine and technology developers and CEPI internal experts, having conducted more than 600 TechTalks since 2019. The main activity is e-scouting for innovative technologies across the globe that can enable CEPI’s 100 Days Mission for vaccine development. Stig is an immunologist with a PhD from the University of Oslo, with expertise in T-cell responses in autoimmune diseases and working with DNA vaccination, as well as working with adaptive immunity in ruminants at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute. He's held strategic roles at CEPI since 2019.

Learn more about effective altruism at: www.effectivealtruism.org
Find out more about EA Global conferences at: www.effectivealtruism.org/ea-global