Potential Covid-19 Vaccine Supplier CureVac Fifth Contract Partner of European Commission
- 17/11/2020
- News
On 16 November 2020, European Commission President von der Leyen released a statement announcing that she would sanction yet another agreement with a supplier of a potential Covid-19 vaccine (see, attachment). This time around, vaccine supplier CureVac will be the Commission’s contract partner and the impending transaction is the fifth of its kind. Under the agreement, the Commission will have the right to procure up to 405 million doses of the vaccine, if and when that product obtains a marketing authorisation from the European Medicines Agency.
Only a few days ago, the Commission announced a similar deal with BioNTech and Pfizer (see, Van Bael & Bellis Life Sciences News Alert of 12 November 2020) and a sixth agreement with Moderna is in the works. Moderna just published, like BioNTech and Pfizer earlier, very encouraging interim test results.
For its part, CureVac had already secured funding from the Commission and the European Investment Bank in order to, among other objectives, develop its Covid-19 vaccine which relies on optimised messenger RNA, the technology also at the basis of the Covid-19 vaccines of the BioNTech - Pfizer alliance and of Moderna.