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Trial and error: Syringe with the first-generation Curevac vaccine in a clinical trial at the University Hospital in Tübingen in June 2020, which was disappointing
Photo: Christoph Schmidt / dpa
Around nine months after the failure of its first corona vaccine project, Curevac is now starting a clinical study with its improved vaccine.
The phase 1 study in the USA is expected to include up to 210 healthy adults, as the Tübingen biotech company announced on Wednesday.
The first subject was vaccinated with the second-generation vaccine candidate – which Curevac, unlike the original, developed not alone, but in partnership with the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
The study will examine the safety and extent of the immune response elicited by the vaccine at different doses.
Curevac expects results in the second half of this year.
Curevac had entered into a partnership with GlaxoSmithKline in summer 2020 to jointly develop new vaccines against infectious diseases based on Curevac's second-generation mRNA technology.
According to Curevac, the second generation promises "the potential to target different Covid-19 variants" and also to treat different diseases with a combined vaccine.
The first generation, on the other hand, was designed for the wild type of the Covid 19 pathogen, which is now almost non-existent.
The biotech company, in which the federal government is also involved alongside the major shareholder Dietmar Hopp, was considered one of the great hopes in the development of a Covid 19 vaccine.
However, it suffered a serious setback because its vaccine did not work as well as hoped, especially against new virus variants, and the project was stopped.
In November, Curevac published the first promising preclinical data from animal studies for its second-generation vaccine.
Accordingly, the agent with an active ingredient dose of 12 micrograms worked just as well as the vaccine from Biontech, which is also based on mRNA technology, with 30 micrograms.
Compared to the first-generation Curevac vaccine, significantly stronger antibody responses to new virus variants such as alpha, beta, delta or lambda were found with the new agent.
The omicron variant was not rampant at the time of the study.
As a special feature, Curevac relies on chemically unmodified mRNA.
ak/Reuters
