Novartis joins with CureVac for developing its Covid-19 Vaccine

Novartis joins with CureVac for developing its Covid-19 Vaccine

CureVac has signed several strategic partnerships for further development, production, and commercialization of its vaccine

In the pursuit of developing the Covid-19 vaccine, Novartis entered into an agreement with CureVac for manufacturing its Covid-19 vaccine CVnCoV. In the latest move, the Swiss Giant initiating a move for manufacturing the vaccine can potentially be viable for both companies.

With the agreement getting mature, Novartis will manufacture the mRNA and the bulk drug product of German Biopharma company, CureVac's CVnCoV. The companies are planning to manufacture up to 50 million doses by the end of 2021, with further scale-up to 200 million doses in 2022. The delivery of the dose of the vaccine from the Novartis manufacturing site Kundl, Austria, is expected to begin in the Summer of 2021.

Steffen Lang, Global Head of Novartis technical operations and the member of the executive committee, Novartis said, "We feel it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to help and we are pleased to announce our collaboration with CureVac. At the Kundl site, Novartis is a pioneer and has decades of experience in the pharmaceutical production of proteins and more recent years of nucleic acids. We are currently expanding our site with additional capacities for the production of mRNA to best serve the increasing demand."

The phase 1 study of the investigational mRNA-based vaccine shows impressive results, having induced strong binding and neutralizing antibody response. While confirming the activation of the cellular immune response, the vaccine also demonstrated the early indication of functional T cells, as reported by the German biopharma. Following the positive phase 1 study results, CureVac launched a phase 2b/3 study of CVnCoV in December 2020, evaluating a 12µg dose of the vaccine.

Having impressive results, CureVac has signed several strategic partnerships for further development, production, and commercialization of its vaccine. The collaboration includes an agreement with Bayer for supporting the further development and supply of the drug. This collaboration was announced in January. With this agreement, CureVac will be getting the Bayer expertise and established infrastructure in clinical operation and other areas such as regulatory affairs, pharma co-vigilance, and the chain information related to supply.

Moving further, the German company entered into another agreement with the British giant GlaxoSmithKline for developing the next generation of Covid-19 vaccine based upon mRNA. Getting the expertise from the GSK, the agreement will focus more on developing the novel mRNA using the multivalent approach offering broader protection against the variants.

CureVac is also working with the UK Vaccine Taskforce for developing the variants of SARS-CoV-2 generating vaccine candidates. In a statement, the UK government said that 'almost all vaccines' developed as part of the CureVac partnership will be variants of the German company's existing vaccine, CVnCoV.

Not only the German company but Novartis had previously entered into an agreement with Pfizer and BioNtech for supplementing their vaccine production and leveraging its manufacturing capacity and capabilities to the companies.