Curevac: Tübingen biotech company deep in the red – Economy

Due to the withdrawal of its first vaccine candidate, the Tübingen biotech company Curevac is still in the red. The backgrounds.

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The Tübingen biotech company Curevac is still in the red because of the withdrawal of its first vaccine candidate. The operating loss last year was 412.3 million euros (2020: 109.8 million euros), according to a company announcement on Thursday.

The increase in research and development expenditure is primarily due to significantly higher costs from the then approval-relevant 2b/3 study phase with 40,000 subjects. Pre-tax losses for the 2021 financial year (ending December 31) amounted to €412.5 million. In 2020 it was 129.8 million euros. Sales increased last year to 103.0 million euros after 48.9 million euros in 2020.

Clinical study started at the end of March

According to CFO Pierre Kemula, most of the commitments related to the withdrawal of the first vaccine candidate (CVnCoV) have now been resolved. “It is important that we have received confirmation from the European Union that the 450 million upfront payment related to the terminated CVnCoV pre-emption agreement does not need to be repaid.”

Curevac started a clinical study of its new vaccine candidate (CV2CoV) against Corona at the end of March. After CVnCoV withdrew from the approval process last year due to comparatively weak effectiveness, Curevac and its British partner – the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – began developing a new vaccine.

The preparation of the Tübingen company is a so-called mRNA vaccine – like the vaccines from Biontech/Pfizer (Germany/USA) and Moderna (USA). According to Curevac, data from the new phase 1 study are expected in the second half of 2022.

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