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Vaccine manufacturer Curevac: Comeback attempt after deep fall
Photo: Jan Hübner / IMAGO
High hopes, deep crash: The vaccine manufacturer Curevac from Tübingen, financed by SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, was one of the great hopes in the fight against the virus at the beginning of the corona pandemic.
In August 2020, the German start-up went public on the US technology exchange Nasdaq and was valued at $8 billion: by the end of 2020, the valuation had doubled, and a Curevac share cost more than $100 at times.
But by summer 2021 it became clear that the Tübingen-based company could not keep up with its competitors Biontech from Main and Moderna from the USA: Biontech and Moderna launched the first mRNA vaccines against corona, while Curevac asked its investors to be patient.
It was said that the aim was not to develop the first, but the best vaccine.
Ultimately, however, Curevac was unable to keep pace and withdrew its first-generation vaccine candidate - CVnCoV - from the approval process due to comparatively weak efficacy.
The stock continued to plummet, temporarily falling below the $5 mark by the end of 2022.
Now, at the beginning of 2023, the Curevac share is starting to rebound.
The WHO sees the end of the corona pandemic in the near future because a majority of people in most countries around the world have already had contact with the virus.
The corona virus would then be "endemic" and, like the flu virus, would appear again and again in waves at certain times of the year.
Investors are apparently hoping that Curevac's future vaccines - both against flu and against the corona virus - can develop market potential in this new phase.
The price rally of the past four days was triggered by an interim report that Curevac had published on its flu vaccine program.
Curevac announced on January 6 that “promising modified mRNA vaccine candidates for COVID-19 and influenza” had been identified from an ongoing phase 1 study.
Preliminary results from this early phase would demonstrate the "power of CureVac's mRNA platform technology."
CureVac and its partner Glaxo Smith Kline are now planning to advance modified mRNA COVID-19 and influenza candidates to the next stages of clinical development.
This announcement was enough to make the Curevac rise by more than 100 percent within a few days.
On Wednesday it was last listed 7 percent firmer at just under 12 euros.
The hope for a new start is also underpinned by a change in leadership: the previous CEO Franz-Werner Haas resigned on March 31 after three years in office.
The new CEO will be Alexander Zehnder, who previously worked as a manager at the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche and was most recently responsible for the oncology division at the French pharmaceutical company Roche.
Whether or not Zehnder will succeed in what Haas has not been able to do in the past three years - to bring an mRNA vaccine to market maturity and make it a sales success - will only be seen in a few months.
Curevac main shareholder Hopp would have nothing against a success in the new attempt.
