Why strategic partnerships are redefining vaccine development

The changing face of vaccine innovation

Vaccine development has undergone a fundamental transformation over the past decade. The days when discovery, manufacturing, and evaluation happened in isolated silos are rapidly disappearing. Instead, a new model is taking shape – one built on strategic partnerships that bring together academia, biotechs, CROs, regulators and global health organisations.

At the recent World Vaccine Congress in Amsterdam, industry leaders from Moderna, Afrigen Biologics, UKHSA, and IAVI shared how collaboration is driving progress faster and further than ever before. From shared data platforms to co-developed regulatory pathways, these partnerships are setting the pace for a new era of vaccine innovation.

From platforms to partnerships

Moderna’s collaboration with IAVI on an HIV vaccine demonstrates what can happen when partners share a common goal and complementary strengths. For IAVI, the partnership unlocked access to cutting-edge mRNA technology; for Moderna, it provided the opportunity to apply their platform to a new therapeutic frontier.

Similarly, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) highlighted how its CEPI-supported partnerships with CROs and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) helped to accelerate vaccine booster programmes –  a model now being replicated for future trials, including H5 influenza.

These examples underscore a key shift: strategic partnerships are not simply contractual relationships; they are co-created ecosystems built on trust, expertise, and aligned objectives.

The CRO’s role in collaborative progress

For contract research organisations like PHARMExcel, these evolving dynamics reaffirm an important truth — innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. CROs typically play a central role in bringing together science, operations, and compliance. In future, the most capable, agile CROs will enable innovation at speed and scale by facilitating collaboration and applying their expertise and experience to facilitate the end goal.

PHARMExcel’s role in these partnerships extends beyond our standard services and managing trial logistics. It involves:

• Translating scientific ambition into operational reality, ensuring studies are robust, compliant, and efficient.
• Providing regulatory and quality oversight, helping partners meet the rigorous standards required for new technologies such as mRNA or AI-generated antigens.
• Acting as an extension of the client team and an advocate for your study. Working collaboratively with your team, delivering beyond standard service and support.

In essence, CROs are the connective tissue that keeps these collaborative ecosystems moving smoothly.

Beyond speed: the value of shared learning

One of the strongest messages from the panel was that partnerships must focus not just on speed, but on sustainability and shared benefit. Long-term relationships create opportunities for mutual learning, capability building, and innovation continuity.

At PHARMExcel, we see this every day in our collaborations with biotech clients, where deep engagement and scientific curiosity drive better outcomes. As a smaller CRO we pride ourselves on our ability to tailor our offering for academic spin outs and biotechs, working collaboratively with them and supporting them with our expertise and care.

We start with understanding the science, then designing the clinical protocols and building the project plan, working side by side with our clients, NHS Trust and regulators. The result is consistently successful trial delivery, notably for first-time sponsors, early-stage clinical trials and complex studies.

Partnerships grounded in transparency and reciprocity are the ones that truly advance science — and ultimately, patient care. PHARMExcel’s management of the clinical trial for COVBoost, an AMTP Oncology study for INmuneBio and our long- term collaboration with the Moorfields Eye Hospital to deliver complex ophthalmology clinical trials, demonstrate our track record as an agile CRO that works collaboratively with sponsors, regulators, NHS Trust hospitals and more.

The future of partnership-driven innovation

COVID-19 reminded us that global health should be a priority and the innovation and collaboration that the pandemic demanded, has resulted in a permanent shift. As platform technologies evolve, the ability to form, manage, and sustain meaningful partnerships will define the most successful players in vaccine development.

For PHARMExcel, this means continuing to build bridges  between discovery and delivery, science and strategy, and ambition and execution. Because in the future of vaccine innovation, collaboration isn’t just an option; it’s the foundation.