Europe Orders 225 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses

A Germany based biopharmaceutical company reports the European Commission (EC) will soon authorize an Advanced Purchase Agreement for CureVac´s mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV.

Once finalized, the contract with the EC, CureVac N.V.’s press release indicates it will provide member states of the European Union (EU) with up to 225 million doses of the vaccine and includes the option for an additional purchase of 180 million doses. 

The CVnCoV vaccine candidate will be supplied once it has proven to be safe and effective against COVID-19.

“CureVac is leveraging 20 years of expertise in mRNA technology to develop a COVID-19 vaccine that can contribute to the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and to potentially allow all of us to return to an unrestricted life, where we are free again to engage in all activities we enjoy doing,” said Dr. Franz-Werner Haas, CureVac’s CEO, in a press statement. 

“As an important step toward that goal, we are proud to potentially supply our COVID-19 vaccine to citizens of the European Union. Beyond the EU, we are actively engaging with governments and multilateral organizations across the globe to ensure broad and equitable access to our COVID-19 vaccine candidate.”

Previously, CureVac announced it was expanding manufacturing capacities for the large-scale manufacturing of CVnCoV. Vaccine doses are expected to be produced both at CureVac’s in-house, GMP-certified manufacturing site in Germany and across a broad European manufacturing network.

CureVac began the development of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate in January 2020. The compound is an optimized, non-chemically modified mRNA, encoding the prefusion stabilized full-length spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Phase 1 interim data reported in November 2020, showed that  CVnCoV was generally well tolerated across all tested doses and induced strong antibody responses in addition to the first indication of T cell activation. The quality of immune response was found to be comparable to recovered COVID-19 patients, closely mimicking the immune response after natural COVID-19 infection. 

The data support the decision to advance a 12µg dose in the upcoming pivotal Phase 2b/3 study. CureVac plans to initiate the pivotal Phase 2b/3 clinical study before the end of 2020.

CVnCoV remained stable and within defined specifications for at least three months when stored at a standard refrigerator temperature of +5°C (+41°F) and up to 24-hours as a ready-to-use vaccine when stored at room temperature. 

CureVac is a global biopharmaceutical company active in the field of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, with more than 20 years of expertise in developing and optimizing the versatile biological molecule for medical purposes.

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