“The RNA People” at CureVac in Tübingen (Germany) have a new €100M investment into their RNA platform, which has prophylactic purposes for common viruses, pipeline candidates for prostate cancer, lung cancer and research into vaccines for HIV, Tuborculosis and Rabies.
Indeed, the financial success surrounding their mRNA work has been startlingly impressive, with the EU prize for Vaccines going to CureVac last year, and a hefty financial interest coming from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (one round in March this year amounting to €46M).
In August it was announced that CureVac will also be collaborating with the Gates Foundation on a third development program using their mRNA platform for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which infects 64 million people each year.
Now, the latest €100M investment round was led by Scottish investment firm Baillie Gifford, and will be used to further expand its clinical programs in infectious diseases, which is still subject to high VC interest overseas.
CureVac is also planning to start construction of an industrial scale facility in 2016, with the aim of producing 30 million vaccine doses per year. In addition, CureVac has changed its corporate legal form to a stock version, in order to prepare for a better international expansion (according to them, anyway). Indeed, CureVac has already planted itself in Boston (US) to collaborate with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
Since CureVac has raised around €300M in equity investments since its conception in 2000, this again goes to show that in regards to the Biotech Vaccine Ecosystem, European biotechs are still the leaders in industrial production.
CureVac’s CEO Ingmar Hoerr, who we interviewed on the Labiotech Tour of South Germany