Richard Hatchett is an American oncologist [1] and epidemiologist who has been serving as chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in Oslo and London since 2017. [2] [3] He was awarded the Secretary of Health and Human Services's Award for Distinguished Service. [4]
Hatchett grew up in Alabama. [5] He graduated from Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. [6] He completed an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center, and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Duke University Hospital. [7] He was also a research associate at the National Heart & Lung Institute at Imperial College London and spent three months in northeast Gabon investigating three closely related Ebola outbreaks. [8]
In 2001, Hatchett worked as an attending in the urgent care center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and was planning to start an oncology fellowship in the summer of 2002. [9] In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, he volunteered at the World Trade Center site. [10] He subsequently moved to Washington, D.C. to help set up the new Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) in 2002. [11]
From 2005 until 2006, Hatchett served as Director for Biodefense Policy on the United States Homeland Security Council and was a principal author of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan. [12] He was also on a pandemic planning team, under President George W. Bush. [13] [14] [15] In this capacity, he devised the concept of social distancing as a non-pharmaceutical intervention intended to prevent the spread of a contagious disease. [16]
From 2005 until 2011, Hatchett served as associate director for Radiation Countermeasures Research and Emergency Preparedness at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the leadership of Anthony Fauci. [17] In 2007, he was the lead author of a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America comparing public-health responses to the Spanish flu in cities like St. Louis and Philadelphia. [18] He also advised on the US government's handling of the 2009 swine flu pandemic. [19]
In addition to his role at NIAID, Hatchett served as Director for Medical Preparedness Policy on the Homeland Security Council under President Barack Obama from 2009 until 2011.
Hatchett was the Chief Medical Officer and deputy director of the United States Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) from 2011 to 2016 before becoming the organization's acting Director in 2016. [20] At BARDA, he oversaw programs to develop medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, pandemic influenza, and emerging infectious diseases and led or helped lead the development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for a number of emerging viruses, including the H3N2v and H7N9 influenza viruses, MERS, Ebola and Zika. [21]
In 2017, Hatchett was appointed as CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, succeeding interim CEO John-Arne Røttingen. [22] In May 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he was appointed to the expert advisory group for the UK Government's Vaccine Task Force. [23] When the UK held the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) in 2021, the government also appointed him to serve as a member of the Pandemic Preparedness Partnership, chaired by Patrick Vallance. [24] [25]
Under Hatchett's leadership, CEPI funded early development of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. CEPI also teamed up with the African Union to fund African vaccine production. [26] [27] Together with Seth Berkley, he developed the concept for COVAX in early 2020. [28] CEPI is organizing a 2022 Covid summit. [29] [30]
In March 2020, Hatchett warned about COVID-19. [31] He does not think Intellectual property rights significantly contribute to vaccine shortages. [32] [33] He is concerned about supply chain problems, [34] [35] and export controls. [36]
Seth Franklin Berkley is an American medical epidemiologist and a global advocate of the power of vaccines. He is the founder and former president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and former CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. He is currently a senior advisor to the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who has served as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization since 2023. He was previously the director of The Wellcome Trust from 2013 to 2023 and a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
Joanne Liu is a Canadian pediatric emergency medicine physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal, Professor of Clinical Medicine at McGill University, and the previous International President of Médecins sans Frontières. She was elected president during MSF's International General Assembly in June 2013.
Novavax, Inc. is an American biotechnology company based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, that develops vaccines to counter serious infectious diseases. Prior to 2020, company scientists developed experimental vaccines for influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as Ebola and other emerging infectious diseases. During 2020, the company redirected its efforts to focus on development and approval of its NVX-CoV2373 vaccine for COVID-19.
Soumya Swaminathan is an Indian paediatrician and clinical scientist known for her research on tuberculosis and HIV. From 2019 to 2022, she served as the chief scientist at the World Health Organization under the leadership of Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Previously, from October 2017 to March 2019, she was the Deputy Director General of Programmes (DDP) at the World Health Organization.
Gagandeep Kang FRS is an Indian microbiologist and virologist who has been leading the work on enteric diseases, diarrheal infections and disease surveillance at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation since 2023.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is a foundation that takes donations from public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations, to finance independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases (EID).
Disease X is a placeholder name that was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic. The WHO adopted the placeholder name to ensure that their planning was sufficiently flexible to adapt to an unknown pathogen. Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci stated that the concept of Disease X would encourage WHO projects to focus their research efforts on entire classes of viruses, instead of just individual strains, thus improving WHO capability to respond to unforeseen strains. In 2020, experts, including some of the WHO's own expert advisors, speculated that COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus strain, met the requirements to be the first Disease X.
John-Arne Røttingen is a Norwegian medical scientist, research administrator and civil servant. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Wellcome Trust. Previously, he served as Ambassador for Global Health in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has been a special advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Inovio Pharmaceuticals is an American biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of synthetic DNA products for treating cancers and infectious diseases. In April 2020, Inovio was among some 100 companies, academic centers, or research organizations developing a vaccine candidate for treating people infected with COVID-19, with more than 170 total vaccine candidates in development.
Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.
Sir William John Edmunds is a British epidemiologist, and a professor in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator, or the Global Collaboration to Accelerate the Development, Production and Equitable Access to New COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, is a G20 initiative announced by pro-tem Chair Mohammed al-Jadaan on 24 April 2020. A call to action was published simultaneously by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 24 April. As of January 2022, it was the largest international effort to achieve equitable access to COVID-19 health technologies.
James (Jim) Robinson is the vice chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
Barney S. Graham is an American immunologist, virologist, and clinical trials physician.
Dawn Myers O'Connell is an American attorney and health advisor who currently serves as the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Preparedness and Response.
Skycovione is a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by SK Bioscience and the Institute for Protein Design of the University of Washington, It is South Korea's first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine and utilizes GSK's AS03 adjuvant technology.
202-CoV is a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Walvax Biotech. It is one of several candidates under development by Walvax.
Githinji Gitahi is a Kenyan medical doctor who serves as the Global Chief Executive Officer of Amref Health Africa as well a former co-chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee. In July 2021, he was appointed as a Commissioner in the Africa COVID-19 Commission.
Gary P. Kobinger is a Canadian immunologist and virologist who is currently the director at the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas. He has held previous professorships at Université Laval, the University of Manitoba, and the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, he was the chief of the Special Pathogens Unit at the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for eight years. Kobinger is known for his critical role in the development of both an effective Ebola vaccine and treatment. His work focuses on the development and evaluation of new vaccine platforms and immunological treatments against emerging and re-emerging viruses that are dangerous to human health.