Doubts about Curevac's corona vaccine candidate had recently grown.
Now it is clear: the effectiveness is not as good as hoped.
Shareholders have to be prepared for severe price setbacks.
Munich
- The Tübingen biotech company CureVac has to cope with a serious setback in the development of a corona vaccine.
An analysis of the effectiveness of its own Covid vaccine candidate CVnCoV showed a “provisional effectiveness of 47 percent and thus did not meet the specified statistical criteria for success,” the company announced on Wednesday evening.
However, the review with around 40,000 test persons should be continued, it said.
Investors are appalled.
In after-hours US trading, Curevac shares plummeted by over 50 percent.
At the start of trading in Frankfurt, the sell-off is likely to continue in Germany.
Curevac: Observers have long had doubts about vaccine candidates
Curevac recently moved away from statements that the vaccine - as planned - should be approved for approval in the second quarter. As a result, doubts about the Curevac vaccine had grown among observers. Just a few days ago, Health Minister Jens Spahn also said at a meeting with the health ministers of the federal states that the Curevac vaccine was not expected before August. Many investors then sold their Curevac shares. At the start of trading on Thursday, the share should come under the wheels.
"We had hoped for stronger results in the interim analysis," said CEO Franz-Werner Haas according to the press release.
“But it was seen that with this unprecedented range of variants, it is a challenge to achieve a high level of effectiveness.
We will continue the study with at least 80 more cases until the final analysis.
The final effectiveness could still change, ”said Haas.
Curevac: Competitor in mRNA technology by a large margin
Similar to the Mainz company Biontech and the US company Moderna, Curevac also relies on mRNA technology.
In this novel approach, messengers are supposed to transport genetic blueprints for the production of unimaginably tiny amounts of antigens into the cells.
The proteins produced are supposed to trigger a defense reaction of the immune system, which then also protects the body against viruses such as the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2
should protect.
* Merkur.de is part of IPPEN.MEDIA
