Everything you need to know about CureVac, the German drugmaker working on a coronavirus vaccine that's at the heart of a US-German controversy

Zachary Tracer

Mar 17, 2020, 04:59 IST

Everything you need to know about CureVac, the German drugmaker working on a coronavirus vaccine that's at the heart of a US-German controversy

REUTERS/Andreas Gebert

Employee Philipp Hoffmann, of German biopharmaceutical company CureVac, demonstrates research workflow on a vaccine for the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease at a laboratory in Tuebingen, Germany, March 12, 2020. Picture taken on March 12, 2020. REUTERS/Andreas Gebert

To respond to the coronavirus pandemic, drug companies have begun researching potential treatments and vaccines.
One of those vaccine developers, a privately held Germany biotech company called CureVac, hopes to begin testing a potential vaccine in people in June.
A German newspaper reported Sunday that Trump administration officials offered large sums of cash to CureVac to secure for the rights the vaccine, "but only for the USA." The company denied Monday that it has received any offers from the US government.
CureVac is using a genetic technology that enables much quicker development of vaccines. Called messenger RNA (mRNA), a vaccine includes only the genetic instructions to produce a protein to fight the virus.
Despite its speed, the mRNA platform remains unproven. There are no approved vaccines based on the technology. Other biotechs developing mRNA coronavirus vaccines include Moderna, BioNTech, and Arcturus Therapeutics.
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The sprint to develop a coronavirus vaccine is on in full force.

While dozens of research programs are underway, many of the vaccine developers that have put out the fastest timelines for bringing a vaccine into the clinic for human testing share a similarity: the technology they're relying on.

These drug companies are looking to develop a vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA) platform technology - a novel method that has yet to produce an approved vaccine, but holds tremendous promise.

The first potential coronavirus vaccine was injected into clinical trial participants on Monday. That experimental vaccine was made by Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech upstart that uses an mRNA platform. BioNTech, a $9 billion German drugmaker, also said Monday it plans to start clinical testing of its mRNA vaccine in late April.

Reports of an offer, and a denial

The privately held German biotech company CureVac is also researching an mRNA vaccine. The company gained widespread attention over the weekend after the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that a Trump administration officials offered large sums of money for rights to its vaccine, "but only for the USA."

CureVac denied on Monday that it has received any such offers from the US government.

Just a few days before those reports, CureVac switched CEOs on March 11, re-installing its longtime leader and founder Ingmar Hoerr. Previous CEO Daniel Menichella left the company, effective immediately. On Monday, Hoerr took a leave of absence for medical reasons, and Deputy CEO Franz-Werner Haas was put in control of the company.

Hoerr cofounded CureVac in 2000 and served as CEO until 2018, when Menichella took over. While Hoerr is based in Germany, Menichella worked out of Boston. The company has about 500 employees and offices in Boston, Frankfurt, and Tübingen, Germany.

'We have to get focused'

Menichella also a March 2 roundtable of pharmaceutical-industry leaders at the White House, where he discussed CureVac's vaccine research with President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, among others.

On March 12, the day after news was released of the CEO switch, Hoerr spoke with Business Insider about CureVac's research and the recent change in leadership. The conversation took place before press reports about a reported offer from US officials for its vaccine work.

In that interview, Hoerr told Business Insider the CEO change had more to do with the company's focus on research, rather than on business development. In particular, Hoerr cited his own research expertise (the company was founded in part around his Ph.D. work) as a key driver in working on a coronavirus vaccine.

"I think every phase has a CEO fitting for the company," Hoerr said. "[Menichella] had a good fit the last two years, and now I might have a good fit now to get these things done and get to the market."

Hoerr said Menichella was focused more on business negotiations, "but now we really have to get focused on the corona thing and get things done."

CureVac's vaccine could be tested in people in June or July

Menichella previously provided an ambitious timeline for CureVac's work. During the White House meeting, he said the company planned to start a clinical trial by the beginning of June. Hoerr said he expects to start a clinical study in either June or July for the coronavirus vaccine.

He also stressed that CureVac has the ability to mass produce a vaccine if needed in a time of emergency. He outlined how an early safety study, called a Phase 1 trial, could expand to a large population in the case of an emergency:

"If there's an emergency in Germany, and you start with maybe 10 volunteers for the Phase 1 ,then they extend to 100 then they might extend to thousands, especially in at-risk areas," he said

"They can still run this clinical trial and extend as long as they want. They can do 10,000, they can get to 100,000, they can get to 1 million if they want to. It's all there. We all have the material ready to do so. It's quite encouraging to see that we can really do something against corona because we have this material ready," he said.

Hoerr added the company currently has the manufacturing capability to deliver 10 million doses of a 1-microgram vaccine.