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German pharmaceutical company CureVac revealed disappointing test results for its mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, dampening the hope that the spike can help meet the global need for effective inoculations.
CureVac said Wednesday that its punch was 47% effective in protecting against coronavirus in an interim analysis of its final-stage trials, making it one of the least effective coronavirus vaccines tested to date.
Earlier this week, U.S. pharmacist Novavax said its protein-based trait was 90% effective in the fight against coronavirus, while Moderna and BioNTech / Pfizer spikes are 95% effective in combating the original strain of the virus.
Shares listed on CureVac’s Nasdaq fell 50% in post-market operations in New York.
The company attributed the disappointing results to new strains of the virus circulating in ten countries across Latin America and Europe, where the tests were conducted.
In its study of 40,000 people, CureVac said 13 variants were found in volunteers, with more than half of the coronavirus cases caused by worrying variants.
Despite this, data from the United Kingdom this week showed that the two-dose BioNTech / Pfizer mRNA vaccine, or messenger ribonucleic acid, was 96% effective in preventing hospitalization of those infected with the Delta variant, which was first detected in India.
This week, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added the Delta strain to its list of troubling variants.
CureVac has partnered with German manufacturing conglomerate Bayer to produce its coronavirus vaccine and has a deal with British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to create a new generation of punctures.
The poor test results call into question the viability of these projects. CureVac aims to produce 300 million doses of its vaccine this year and 1 billion in 2022.
“While we expected a stronger interim result, we recognize that demonstrating high effectiveness in this vast diversity of unprecedented variants is a challenge,” said Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac’s executive director. He added that the large number of variants “underlines the importance of developing next-generation vaccines”.
The vaccine is also currently being studied in the UK as part of a booster trial which involves administering different shots to people who have already received two doses of the Oxford / AstraZeneca or BioNTech / Pfizer vaccines.
Like Moderna and BioNTech / Pfizer vaccines, the CureVac jab uses mRNA, but its mRNA is natural and unmodified. Its shot also uses a lower dose, 12 micrograms compared to the 100 mg of Moderna and the 30 mg of BioNTech / Pfizer, which translates into a lower production cost and is stable at the conventional temperature of the refrigerator.
CureVac said it would continue trials of its two-dose mRNA vaccine and decide on the most appropriate regulatory pathway after evaluating the final trial data.
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