Dive Temporary:
- CureVac is suing fellow German vaccine maker BioNTech, claiming the technology its rival used to develop the world’s biggest-selling COVID-19 shot with Pfizer infringed on 4 patents. CureVac mentioned Tuesday it filed the lawsuit in a German regional courtroom.
- CureVac’s and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccines every use messenger RNA know-how to set off an immune response towards the coronavirus. Although CureVac scrapped its initial program after disappointing outcomes, it’s now claiming some credit score for BioNTech’s shot. In an announcement, CureVac mentioned mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 have been the results of years of analysis its scientists helped to pioneer, and its “mental property rights have to be acknowledged and revered.”
- The race to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to market fueled curiosity in CureVac, which obtained funding from the U.S. and German governments and was in a position to raise another $213 million by way of an preliminary public providing on Wall Road. However scientific setbacks have despatched shares tumbling from a peak of $136 in early 2021 to round $14 as of Tuesday.
Dive Perception:
Within the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, CureVac was typically talked about in the identical breath as BioNTech and Moderna. The potential of its mRNA know-how earned ex-CEO Daniel Menichella an invite to the White Home in 2020, when a variety of different builders have been assembly with former President Donald Trump to speak concerning the improvement of preventative photographs.
CureVac hasn’t but delivered on that promise, although. Menichella quickly left the company amid media reports, which the corporate denied, suggesting that Trump had tried to chop a deal for CureVac’s shot.
Then CureVac’s vaccine suffered a sequence of setbacks. The corporate began its Part 3 trial in December 2020, a lot later than its rivals and days after BioNTech’s shot was cleared to be used within the U.S.
The delay proved pricey. Examine outcomes confirmed CureVac’s vaccine was solely 47% efficient at stopping COVID-19, versus the greater than 90% efficacy fee achieved by each Moderna and BioNTech. The corporate blamed the rise of extra evasive variants, though some experts cited the possibility that tweaks Moderna and BioNTech made to their photographs, and CureVac didn’t, could have led to completely different outcomes.
CureVac has since gone again to the drafting board, growing a more recent shot with accomplice GSK that its says produces an “earlier and stronger immune response.” However its future is unsure, with a number of vaccines now out there and new variant-specific boosters on the way in which. The brand new vaccine was in a Part 1 trial on the finish of Might.
CureVac didn’t state how a lot cash it’s in search of from BioNTech in its lawsuit. However even when it’s profitable, the corporate gained’t “search an injunction nor intend to take authorized motion that impedes” the manufacturing and distribution of Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine, referred to as Comirnaty.
