Disappointment.
The CureVac vaccine "has reached a preliminary efficacy of 47% against Covid-19, regardless of its severity, not meeting the pre-specified statistical criteria of success," said in a statement the laboratory, which signed an important order contract with the European Union for this messenger RNA vaccine.
"The final efficacy could still change," warns the CEO of the laboratory Franz-Werner Haas, quoted in the press release, which particularly questions the difficulties posed by the appearance of variants of the new coronavirus.
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“We had hoped for more robust results in the interim analysis, but found that it is difficult to achieve high efficacy with this unprecedented range of variants.
We continue the study until the final analysis, ”he adds.
CureVac embarked on the race to develop a vaccine in January 2020, at the same time as the BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna laboratories which were the first to obtain the green light from various regulatory authorities to market their product, also based on innovative messenger RNA technology.
The Tübingen laboratory was, however, one of the most promising
This is the first efficacy result published by the German laboratory which is conducting the final phase of its large-scale clinical trials, with around 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America.
Among these, a total of 134 cases of patients having contracted Covid-19 were studied, explains the press release and 124 were sequenced to identify the variants causing each infection.
However, only one case turned out to be the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, while "more than half of the cases (57%)" were caused by variants considered of concern by the WHO.
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The Tübingen laboratory (south) was at the start of the pandemic considered one of the most promising for developing a vaccine. The European Commission has signed a contract with biotech for the purchase of 405 million doses. CureVac initially thought to seek its approval in Europe in late May or early June when it has already initiated a continuous review procedure with the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as the results are published.
The German authorities had recently anticipated a delay, relying instead on August, pending efficiency results. The laboratory has joined forces with Swiss pharmaceutical giants Novartis and German Bayer for the production phases. At the same time, it is developing so-called second-generation vaccines, taking into account variants, but whose development is less advanced.
