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Celonic to produce 100 million doses of CureVac’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate

Production of CureVac’s CVnCoV vaccine will take place in Germany, with over 50 million doses expected to be produced in 2021.

3D illustration of Covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus vaccine ampoules in a box

CureVac NV has entered into a partnership with Celonic Group for the production of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV. As per the agreement, Celonic will manufacture more than 100 million doses of CVnCoV at its commercial manufacturing facility for biologics and advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs) in Heidelberg, German.

The commercial supply agreement includes manufacturing of the mRNA drug substance as well as lipid nanoparticle (LNP) formulation of the bulk drug product. According to the companies, over 50 million of the ordered doses are to be produced by the end of 2021 and to accomplish this technology and knowledge transfer is already underway.

“Manufacturing of sufficient quantities of vaccine is critical to combating the COVID-19 pandemic,” stated Dr Florian von der Mülbe, Chief Production Officer of CureVac. “With this partnership, we are further extending our integrated European manufacturing network, reinforcing the overall production capacity for our COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV [up to 300 million doses in 2021].”

“Since the onset of the pandemic, Celonic has committed extensive breadth of complex bio-solutions development expertise and manufacturing resources to this global challenge,” added Dr Konstantin Matentzoglu, Chief Executive Officer of Celonic. “We have invested heavily to support our partners in bringing novel COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines to patients, at an accelerated pace. Celonic is proud to collaborate with CureVac as part of an expansive manufacturing network in this global fight against COVID-19 by contributing to the production of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV. With a dedicated and highly motivated team in place, Celonic is well positioned to have produced the first 50 million doses before end of 2021.”

CVnCoV is an optimised, non-chemically modified mRNA. The mRNA encodes the prefusion stabilised full-length spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus formulated within LNPs. It is currently not approved in any countries, even under emergency use; however, it has begun a rolling review with the European Medicines Agency (EMA).