CureVac shares plunge after Covid vaccine falls short in clinical trial
The German biotech lost more than half its value after a preliminary analysis of late-stage trials found its Covid-19 vaccine was only 47 per cent effective.
CureVac’s disappointing mRNA vaccine trial results call into question its future contribution to the global vaccination effort.
The interim analysis of the jab’s trials found that it was one of the least effective coronavirus vaccines tested so far. CureVac’s jab was found to be 47 per cent effective at protecting against the virus, while the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are both 95 per cent effective.
The pharmaceutical company’s shares plummeted more than 52 per cent in German trading, reducing its market value by almost $9.6bn.
On the other side of the Atlantic, its Nasdaq-listed shares plunged 50 per cent on Wednesday in after-market trading.
CureVac blamed the trial’s disappointing results on the prevalence of different strains of the virus among those the vaccine was tested on: 13 coronavirus variants were found in the 40,000 volunteers.
Of these 13 strains, more than half were “variants of concern”, like the India-originated Delta variant that is currently widespread in the UK.
This still puts the CureVac vaccine on the back foot compared with rival vaccines, however. Public Health England said on Monday that both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are more than 90 per cent effective at preventing hospital admissions from the Delta variant.
“While we were hoping for a stronger interim outcome, we recognise that demonstrating high efficacy in this unprecedented broad diversity of variants is challenging,” said Franz-Werner Haas, chief executive of CureVac.
The number of different variants of the virus circulating around the world “underlines the importance of developing next-generation vaccines,” he added.