COVID-19: CureVac, Bayer ink agreement to produce 'hundreds of doses' of vaccine

German pharmaceutical firms Bayer and CureVac on January 6 anunced that y have joined forces in development of CureVac's Covid-19 vaccine candidate. In a joint statement, y revealed that CureVac would w use Bayer expertise and established infrastructure to develop a successful vaccine against coronavirus. CureVac began final phase trials of its vaccine candidate CVnCoV in mid-December, involving more than 35,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America. 

“We are very happy to join forces with Bayer, whose expertise and infrastructure will help us make our vaccine candidate CVnCoV even more rapidly available to as many people as possible. Building on positive data we have seen so far with CVnCoV, we w also have ar strong partner on our side to get vaccine to people who need it following receipt of requisite regulatory approvals,” said Dr. Franz-Werner Haas, Chief Executive Officer of CureVac.

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Bayer would provide access to markets 

As per deal, Bayer would aid CureVac to gain country operations within European Union (EU) and or additional markets. Both companies are w aiming to supply hundreds of vaccine doses in and outside Germany if vaccine gets approved by European Commission. “Toger both companies aim to play a meaningful role to contribute to stopping COVID-19 pandemic,” statement clarified.

Meanwhile, experts and politicians have slammed Germany for t buying eugh doses of Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to roll out its immunisation programme. Germany, which recently reported presence of mutant coronavirus, is a part of EU’s vaccine procurement scheme and is reliant on bloc’s regulators for granting authorization of vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection. Currently, only Pfizer/BioNTech jabs, domestically produced by Germany, are allowed across bloc.

According to latest tally by John Hopkins University, Germany has reported over 1851848 cases of coronavirus out of whom 37,837 people have lost ir lives. While China where pandemic allegedly emerged has revived its ecomy to a large extent, it is US which remains primarily affected. w, with multiple vaccine candidates getting approval, world is expecting catastrophic crisis to end soon. 

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