Study completed earlier: Curevac could deliver results faster

Monday, February 08, 2021

Study completed earlier
Curevac could deliver results faster

Curevac is the second German company to be involved in the fight for corona vaccines. The Tübingen-based company is expected to apply for approval in spring. An important stage on the way there could now be completed weeks earlier.

The clinical study with the Covid-19 vaccine of the Tübingen biotech company Curevac with the Mainz University Medical Center is to be completed faster than planned. The phase 3 study started in December, in which the vaccine was to be tested on more than 2,500 employees in the health service of the university medicine, is now to be opened to members of all health professions in the Mainz region. This means that the duration of the study can be shortened by three weeks and this section can be completed by the end of March, announced the university medicine.

Since the start of the study in December, a third of the planned number of around 2,500 subjects has been admitted. The expansion now also enables participation for members of all health professions in Mainz and the surrounding area. The study complements the registration study started by Curevac in December with the vaccine with more than 35,000 participants. Curevac expects to be able to submit approval applications for the drug in the second quarter.

Together with its partners, Curevac plans to produce up to 300 million cans this year. In the next year there should be a billion of the mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine. The company recently agreed to cooperate with the British government, the pharmaceutical giant Bayer and its competitor Glaxosmithkline. The EU has secured up to 405 million doses of the vaccine.

According to its own information, Curevac has a good 500 employees. The majority owner is the SAP founder Dietmar Hopp. Almost a quarter (23 percent) has belonged to the state development bank KfW and thus indirectly to the federal government since last summer. With the entry, Berlin wanted to secure the company against a possible takeover from abroad. in the meantime it had been said that the USA wanted to get in.