“We are very encouraged by the preliminary data from Phase I,” said the President and CEO. (File)
Frankfurt:
CureVac’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine has triggered an immune response in humans, the German biotech company said on Monday, putting it on track to begin mass testing this year as the race to end the pandemic is heating up.
“We are very encouraged by the provisional data from Phase I,” CEO Franz-Werner Haas said in a statement.
The biotech company uses the so-called messenger RNA (mRNA) approach, the same as Moderna as well as BioNTech and its partner Pfizer, although they began mass testing on humans in late July.
CureVac said its potential vaccine, known as CVnCoV, was generally well tolerated, and the trial results strongly supported the company’s plans to launch the final stage of testing involving around 30,000 participants before the end of the trial. year.
CureVac – backed by German biotech investor Dietmar Hopp, the Gates Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline – said the volunteers had developed a level of neutralizing antibodies comparable to people who had recovered from a severe case of COVID- 19.
The pandemic, which has claimed more than 1.2 million lives worldwide, has sparked a rush for vaccine development with around 45 experimental compounds being tested on humans.
Britain’s AstraZeneca, which works with the University of Oxford, is also among the main contenders with advanced test results expected this year. Their candidate is based on another virus, rather than mRNA, to deliver genetic instructions into the body for an immunizing effect.
Anthony Fauci, America’s foremost infectious disease expert, said Thursday that the first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine would likely be available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January.
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CureVac’s hopes of offering a vaccine in much lower doses than its mRNA competitors may have been tarnished as it chose the highest strength of five doses – from 2 to 12 micrograms per injection – for its trial. phase III.
BioNTech and Pfizer said the 30 microgram injection they chose in their advanced stage trial had previously been shown to produce higher levels of antibodies than seen in people who have recovered from COVID- 19.
Moderna, which like BioNTech expects to have the first efficacy data from its mass trial this month, is testing a 100 microgram injection that has also been found to elicit a higher antibody response than recovered patients .
A spokesperson for CureVac said that even at 12 micrograms, its dosage was still relatively low.
CureVac said it is considering a potential partnership with a large pharmaceutical company as it seeks to ramp up development, production and distribution. The spokesperson said on Monday that the company was examining various options.
The 20-year-old company, which went public on the Nasdaq exchange in August, said its Phase I study has so far recruited more than 250 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 60 in Germany and in Belgium.
He said his inoculation also appears to generate T cells against the coronavirus, another key indicator of an effective immune system arsenal, but further analysis of this is underway.
CureVac said the side effects occurred mainly after the second injection of its two-dose regimen and included fatigue, headache, chills, muscle aches and, to a lesser extent, fever.
These conditions “resolved quickly, usually within 24 to 48 hours,” he said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
