Achievements of the COVID-19 Turkey Platform in vaccine and drug development with an approach of “co-creation and succeeding together”

Mobilizing the research ecosystem for accelerating vaccine and drug development has been an important reality of the pandemic. This article reviews the scientific advances that are attained by the COVID-19 Turkey Platform for vaccine and drug development against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The platform that is coordinated by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey is established with a “co-creation and succeeding together” approach, which involves 436 researchers across 49 different institutions working on 17 vaccine and drug development projects in total. Recent advances of the COVID-19 Turkey Platform include the fourth virus-like particle-based vaccine candidate in the world to enter clinical studies based on the World Health Organization COVID-19 vaccine tracker that is currently completing phase 2 clinical studies on the path towards initiating phase 3 clinical studies. Moreover, an adjuvanted inactivated vaccine candidate and two drug candidates that have been identified through the virtual scanning of more than 20,000 molecules are currently in clinical studies. Other vaccines and drug candidates involve additional innovative aspects, and a locally synthesized drug is found to have an impact on COVID-19. This review article discusses the advances that are achieved by the COVID-19 Turkey Platform from the ecosystem perspective, emphasizing the important scientific advances that have been achieved in the field of medical sciences.