CureVac, U.K. Government Agree to Develop Future Covid Shots

(Bloomberg) -- CureVac NV will collaborate with the U.K. to develop vaccine candidates against coronavirus variants, with the government securing 50 million doses of any successful shot.

The German biotech will work with the U.K.’s vaccine task force in assessing mutated strains that emerge, and clinical studies in the U.K. may be expedited for faster regulatory clearance, according to a statement Friday. The move extends the country’s investment in Covid-19 prevention as Britain races ahead of the European Union in vaccinations.

CureVac is forging partnerships in a bid to accelerate the development and roll out of its experimental messenger-RNA Covid vaccines, which are similar to the ones already being administered to tens of millions of people from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, along with Moderna Inc.

Vaccine makers and governments are already turning their focus to combating mutated strains of the virus amid growing concern about the threat posed by variants that emerged in South Africa, Brazil and the U.K.

The U.K. government “has been at the forefront of surveillance, vaccine development and delivery of vaccines for deployment during this pandemic,” Antony Blanc, CureVac’s chief business and commercial officer, said in the statement.

The company’s pact comes amid a global scramble for vaccine supplies that was inflamed last week by a dispute between the European Union and British drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc over supplies.

Development Network

CureVac already has deals with Bayer AG and GlaxoSmithKline Plc that are designed to speed up the development and deployment of its Covid shots.

The U.K. government joins that network of partners, with plans to analyze different virus variants alongside CureVac and to help create vaccine candidates against some of them, Clive Dix, interim chairman of the country’s vaccines task force, said in the statement.

CureVac will transfer technology to the U.K. to allow for manufacturing of its future shots, along with the company’s current candidate that’s in a late-stage trial. Results from that study should be available in late March, with potential regulatory approvals in April, Chief Executive Officer Franz-Werner Haas said on Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

Under the new agreement, some of the vaccines would be produced in the U.K. and the country would have access to “large quantities of variant vaccines” for a period of three years.

CureVac expects to be able to supply 300 million doses of its current shot this year and 1 billion doses of it in 2022. Bayer is converting a plant in Germany to produce another 160 million doses in 2022, with plans to add further capacity after that.

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