The COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition was founded by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory, and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, more than 75 scientific organizations from 30 countries officially launched the Coalition with a Comment published in The Lancet.

Today, the membership exceeds 900 institutions and individuals from 98 countries.

The shared goal as coalition members from around the world is to ensure that people in resource-limited regions – primarily in Africa, Asia, and Latin America – receive the benefits of scientific advances in new treatments, diagnostics, and vaccines for COVID-19, and that scientists in these regions lead a research response driven by the priorities in these settings.

Vaccination roll-out has proved what we feared when the Coalition was formed: wealthy countries have access to vaccines, while millions of people in low-and middle-income countries are still waiting for their first shots. “Global” research for COVID-19 treatments has largely taken place in and for wealthy nations. This research has primarily evaluated medicines that would be difficult and expensive to deliver in low-resource settings.

The mission of COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition is to advocate and collaborate for the advancement of COVID-19 research that is driven by the needs of people in low-resource settings, and to strive for equitable access to solutions in the global response to the pandemic