It was co-founded and co-funded with US$460 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Wellcome Trust, and a consortium of nations, being Norway, Japan, Germany; to which the European Union (2019) and Britain (2020) subsequently joined.[1][2] CEPI is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.[1][2][3] In 2017, Nature said, "It is by far the largest vaccine development initiative ever against viruses that are potential epidemic threats".[4] In 2020, CEPI was identified as a "key player in the race to develop a vaccine" for the Coronavirus disease 2019.[2][5][6]