Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi / Bloomberg
Bayer AG agreed to produce CureVac NV’s experimental coronavirus vaccine to boost the implementation of a promising shot as European Union governments skarrel for additional supplies to incite a plodding campaign.
The move will not apply immediately, though it’s at least good news for Europe after a week of chaos surrounding the program. The controversy escalated after the European Commission launched a threat to export vaccines – which sparked worldwide outrage – in response to news that AstraZeneca Plc will miss the delivery targets.
Bayer’s production effort expands its current contract with CureVac on regulatory approval and worldwide distribution, and will begin delivering at the end of the year. It follows commitments of fellow European pharmaceutical giants Sanofi en Novartis AG will increase its production capacity behind the upscaling of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 injection site.
Large drug manufacturers offer the ability to increase the supply that smaller developers lack, and companies are also under pressure to help, as new variants threaten the effectiveness of existing surveys. Vaccinations seem to be the only way out of the pandemic that has killed more than 2.2 million people worldwide.
“We need vaccines after the summer,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference on Monday. ‘It is possible that vaccines need to be adapted and changed due to mutations that we cannot predict today. The mRNA technology makes it possible to do this relatively quickly. ”
Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold crisis talks on Monday with pharmaceutical managers, German local leaders and European Commission officials. The video call in Berlin comes after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that Astra would supply 9 million extra vaccine doses to the EU in the first quarter.
The commission is expected to double on Monday that a vaccination target of 70% of Europeans is achievable by the summer, but only if drugmakers keep their promises, according to an official familiar with the matter.
The Astra debacle underscores how small such commitments are. This caused a crisis on 22 January when it was said that problems at a plant in Belgium meant that the delivery of doses would be significantly limited this quarter.
The episode culminated in a bruise game that sparked the EU of 27 countries against the pharmaceutical industry, sparking fears over a spate of vaccine nationalism that could hamper efforts to fight the pandemic.
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Bayer’s Stefan Oelrich, head of the company’s pharmaceutical unit, said talks with the German government had helped persuade him to consider a vaccine, although it had never been done.
“We have the necessary capacity” thanks to experience in the production of biotechnological products, Oelrich said. Bayer expects to be able to produce 160 million doses of CureVac’s vaccine next year through its factory in Wuppertal, near Düsseldorf.
Bayer shares rose 1.1% in Frankfurt.
CureVac’s shot is still being tested in a late trial, but Spahn said the shot could get approval as early as March. The product is an RNA vaccine for messengers similar to that of fellow German firm BioNTech – which was with Pfizer – and Moderna Inc. These shots were the first to be approved in Europe and elsewhere, and showed approximately 95% effectiveness in trials.
– Assisted by Nikos Chrysoloras