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 "We are very encouraged by the interim Phase I data," Chief
Executive Officer Franz-Werner Haas said in a statement,
The biotech firm is using the so-called messenger RNA (mRNA)
approach, the same as Moderna as well as BioNTech and its partner
Pfizer, although they started mass testing on humans in late July.
CureVac said its potential vaccine, known as CVnCoV, was generally
well tolerated and results strongly supported the company's plans to
launch the final stage of testing on humans before the end of the
year.
CureVac - backed by German biotech investor Dietmar Hopp, the Gates
Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline - said volunteers developed a level
of neutralising antibodies on par with people who had recovered from
a serious case of COVID-19.
The pandemic, which has claimed more than 1.1 million lives
globally, has triggered a scramble to develop a vaccine with about
45 experimental compounds being tested on humans.
Britain's AstraZeneca, working with the University of Oxford, is
also among leading contenders with late-stage trial results expected
this year but their candidate is based on another virus, rather than
mRNA, to deliver genetic instructions into the body for an
immunisation effect.
Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said on
Thursday that the first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus
vaccine will likely become available to some high-risk Americans in
late December or early January.
CureVac's hopes of offering a vaccine at much lower doses than its
mRNA competitors may have been dented as it has picked the highest
concentration of five dosages - from 2 to 12 microgrammes per shot -
for its prospective Phase III trial.
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BioNTech and Pfizer have said the 30 microgramme shot they opted for in their
late-stage trial had previously been shown to produce antibody levels above
those registered in people who recovered from COVID-19.
Moderna, which like BioNTech expects to have first efficacy data from its mass
trial this month, is testing a 100 microgramme shot that has also been shown to
trigger an antibody response above that of recovered patients.
CureVac, which went public on the Nasdaq exchange in August, said its Phase I
study has so far enrolled more than 250 healthy individuals aged 18 to 60 years
in Germany and Belgium.
It said its inoculation appears to also generate T cells against the coronavirus,
another key indicator of an effective immune system arsenal, but more analysis
of this was ongoing.
It said side effects occurred mostly after the second injection of its two-dose
regimen and included fatigue, headache, chills, muscle pain and, to a lesser
extent, fever.
These conditions "resolved rapidly, usually within 24 to 48 hours", it said.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger; Editing by David Clarke)
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