Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Bayer AG agreed to produce CureVac NV’s experimental coronavirus vaccine to drive the deployment of a promising feature as European Union governments stir to get additional supplies to drive an intense campaign.
The decision will have no immediate effect, although it is at least good news for Europe after a week of chaos around its program. The controversy intensified after the European Commission threatened to curb vaccine exports, provoking global anger, in response to news of this. AstraZeneca Plc would miss delivery targets.
Bayer’s productive effort expands its current pact with CureVac on regulatory clearance and global distribution and will begin delivery at the end of the year. It follows the commitments of fellow European pharmaceutical giants Sanofi i Novartis AG will put its manufacturing capabilities behind the increase in Covid-19 injection from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE.
Large drug manufacturers bring the possibility of increasing supply that smaller developers do not have, and companies are also under pressure to help, as new variants threaten the effectiveness of existing shots. Vaccines seem to offer the only way out of the pandemic, which has killed more than 2.2 million people worldwide.
“We will need vaccines beyond the summer,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference on Monday. “It is possible that due to mutations that we cannot yet predict today, vaccines will have to be adjusted and changed. MRNA technology allows this to be done relatively quickly.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold crisis talks on Monday with pharmaceutical executives, German regional leaders and European Commission officials. The video call in Berlin comes after Commission chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen announced that Astra will deliver an additional 9 million doses of vaccine to the EU in the first quarter.
The commission is expected to double on Monday to meet the vaccination target of 70% of Europeans in the summer, but only if drug manufacturers meet the promised commitments, according to an official familiar with the matter.
Astra’s debacle highlights the commitment of such commitments. It sparked a crisis on January 22 when it said problems at a plant in Belgium meant that dose deliveries would be significantly reduced this quarter.
The episode turned into a blunt game that pitted the EU of 27 countries against the pharmaceutical industry and sparked fears about a wave of vaccine nationalism that could hamper efforts to combat the pandemic.
How does the nationalism of vaccines against scarce supplies occur: QuickTake
Stefan Oelrich of Bayer, who heads the company’s pharmaceutical unit, said talks with the German government helped convince him to consider producing a vaccine, although so far he had not. done.
“We have the necessary capacity” thanks to experience in manufacturing biotech products, Oelrich said. Bayer hopes to produce 160 million doses of CureVac vaccine next year taking advantage of its factory in Wuppertal, nearby Düsseldorf.
Bayer shares rose 1.1% in the Frankfurt trading.
CureVac’s shot is still being tested in a final-stage trial, but Spahn he said the shot could get approval as early as March. The product is a messenger RNA vaccine similar to that of the German company BioNTech – which partnered with Pfizer – and Moderna Inc. These shots were the first to be approved in Europe and elsewhere and demonstrated 95% effectiveness in trials.
– With the assistance of Nikos Chrysoloras