ICON Joins UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance

ICON is one of seven leading Irish companies that just endorsed an open letter urging fellow corporate leaders to join the UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance

The UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance supports UNICEF’s goal to deliver over two billion COVID-19 vaccines by the end of 2021. UNICEF already possesses a wealth of experience in global vaccine infrastructure, vaccinating nearly half the world’s children each year. Even during a pandemic, UNICEF’s mission is still clear: to ensure healthcare workers, educators, and those who care for children in 92 lower-income countries are vaccinated as soon as possible.

The open letter centres on the fact that Corporate Ireland can change the trajectory of the pandemic—UNICEF needs the support of companies like ICON to help ensure fair, safe, worldwide access to vaccines. Together, we can all help bring the pandemic to an end—especially since there is a gulf between vaccination rates in higher- and lower-income nations, where total fully vaccinated population rates in the latter are often below 5%. In contrast, Ireland’s successful vaccination programme has yielded an over 90% vaccination rate.

Why is ICON participating in the Vaccine Alliance?

Our CFO Brendan Brennan said in a press release, “ICON has been involved in conducting global clinical trials for several COVID-19 vaccines. Our teams have worked tirelessly for over a year to help scientists bring hope through novel vaccines and therapeutics. Our commitment to global public health and advanced research is why we have joined the UNICEF Corporate Vaccine Alliance. We recognise our responsibility to the most vulnerable populations who need vaccines and treatments to fight COVID-19 right now. ICON is honoured to be a part of the Alliance, and we encourage others in Ireland to get involved.”

As a global clinical research company, ICON has a responsibility and desire to support the equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. The world’s most vulnerable populations, including children and their caregivers, deserve access to approved vaccines. Our world economy cannot restart and recover without wide distribution of safe and effective vaccines and other treatments for COVID-19.

ICON has had a long relationship with UNICEF, both in Ireland and globally. Most recently, with the acquisition of PRA Health Sciences, we celebrated bringing ICON and PRA together with a donation to UNICEF that would provide a COVID-19 vaccine to 38,000 people in developing nations—one shot per ICON employee.

UNICEF is in a unique position to procure and deliver vaccines quickly and efficiently—they have the infrastructure, the people, and the history of major vaccine rollouts across the world. ICON is proud to support their efforts.

ICON’s role in vaccine development

ICON has been involved in the clinical trials of several vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 over the past 18 months, including the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine. Our teams have worked tirelessly with scientists to conduct trials worldwide. ICON is proud of the work done by our global teams on all of the COVID vaccines and therapeutics, including many trials that are still ongoing. It has been a privilege to work on COVID-19 clinical trials and support vaccine distribution as a global corporate citizen.