Moderna and CEPI moved to accelerate development of an mRNA vaccine targeting the Bundibugyo virus species driving the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The partners said the program is designed to reach a Phase 1 trial in the coming months, subject to regulatory review. CEPI committed up to $50 million for Moderna’s candidate and also funded two other Bundibugyo approaches: an IAVI (recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus vector) candidate and a University of Oxford program manufactured by the Serum Institute of India using the ChAdOx platform. CEPI said it mobilized within roughly two weeks of the outbreak announcement in mid-May. The effort targets a key gap highlighted by the outbreak—existing Ebola vaccine options do not cover every species responsible for human disease—setting up a fast path toward early human testing of species-specific countermeasures.