After reporting disappointing results of their late-stage clinical trial for a Covid vaccine, shares of german biopharma company Curevac (NASDAQGM: CVAC) dropped 39% from Wednesday closing prices.
The hope for Curevac’s Covid-19 vaccine ‘CVnCov’ joining the current available vaccines in combating the on-going pandemic has been diminished as the trial only showed a 47% efficacy.
Expectations for the vaccine were high due to the utilization of mRNA technology, similar to the vaccines of Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna. Although the broad range of virus variants that have emerged might have impeded its comparability, the U.S. biotech company Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) managed to report 90.4% efficacy over a similar study period.
Curevac CEO Franz-Werner Haas remained optimistic in a statement, that “while we were hoping for a stronger interim outcome, we recognize that demonstrating high efficacy in this unprecedented broad diversity of variants is challenging. As we are continuing toward the final analysis the overall vaccine efficacy may change.”
He continued that, “in addition, the variant-rich environment underlines the importance of developing next-generation vaccines as new virus variants continue to emerge.” CureVac is working with GlaxoSmithKline on a second-generation coronavirus vaccine called CV2CoV. Showing robust preclinical data this second vaccine might be Curevac’s silver lining on the horizon.