In the race to develop a vaccine against Covid, the Tübingen-based company Curevac is now pulling the rip cord and cutting the connection with Wacker Chemie.
Munich - The Tübingen biotech company Curevac is cutting its partner network before the market launch of its corona active ingredient.
The existing contracts for the production of the mRNA active ingredient with the Wacker Group and Celonic will be terminated, Curevac announced on Tuesday afternoon.
The agreements with Novartis and Rentschler Biopharma, however, remained in force, it said.
"The continuous expansion of mRNA production capacities in combination with the progress of the large-scale vaccination campaigns" has changed the demand for "our first-generation COVID-19 vaccine" in the past few months, "said the board member responsible for operations, Malte Greune.
Curevac: New Corona active ingredient should be tested at the end of the year
Curevac recently suffered a major setback in the development of its Covid vaccine. The test results in large-scale field trials were well below the effectiveness of the vaccines from Biontech or Moderna. Observers attributed this, among other things, to the comparatively low dose. Investors reacted with horror and parted ways with the stock across the board. Curevac is now working on an improved active ingredient. Clinical testing is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2021, announced Curevac.