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Companies around the world are investigating corona vaccines under high pressure. Three companies from Germany also participate. The federal government supports them with hundreds of millions of euros.
By Oda Lambrecht and Christian Baars, NDR
A year ago only a few knew about this Mainz company: BioNTech. Approximately 1,500 employees work there, but in its twelve-year history the company has yet to bring a single product to market. Now BioNTech is suddenly worth more than 15 billion euros. And almost everyone is looking at the company, because in the race for a possible vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, it is right in front.
They had named their project “Speed of light” – “the speed of light” – to show they were working as fast as possible, Sirk Poetting of the BioNTech board said at a news conference in early October. BioNTech has been working with US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop the vaccine since March.
Possible admission this year
They also have the support of the federal government, with funding of up to 375 million euros. The money will help expand production capacity and fund the final large study, Poetting said. The two companies are currently testing their vaccine candidates in this so-called phase 3 study. “We could find out by the end of October whether or not our vaccine is working,” Pfizer chief Albert Bourla announced in writing a few days ago.
Then it should take a few more weeks until it is also clear whether the product meets the safety requirements. Assume they could reach this milestone in the third week of November, writes Bourla. If the results are positive, they will immediately apply for emergency approval in the US And in Europe, too, the drug could hit the market very quickly. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has been verifying data on the BioNTech and Pfizer medicine in a process called “continuous review” since early October, that is, while the studies are still ongoing.
Actually focus on cancer drugs
Scientists at the Mainz-based company originally focused on finding potential cancer drugs. But the process they work with can also be used against viruses. He is researching active ingredients based on so-called messenger RNA (mRNA). The idea: parts of the genetic material from tumor cells or viruses are funneled into human cells. There, they then build specific and typical sections of the foreign body, to which the immune system should react.
The Tübingen company CureVac with around 450 employees has also been researching mRNA-based cancer drugs for a long time and has also been developing a Covid-19 vaccine since the beginning of the year. And something else connects the two companies. Both are backed by financially strong individual investors.
At BioNTech, the main shareholders are twin brothers Thomas and Andreas Strüngmann. They founded the Hexal pharmaceutical company, then sold it in 2005, making billions. Since then, they have been investing in various biotech companies, including BioNTech.
Ex-CureVac-Chef bei Trump
At CureVac, former SAP co-founder and billionaire Dietmar Hopp owns nearly half of the company’s stock. In March, the prominent investor announced that it could deliver a vaccine in the fall. Shortly before, CureVac had made headlines because the then CEO was invited to the White House. There were reports that US President Donald Trump briefly considered buying the company. That did not happen. CureVac denied that such an offer ever existed.
In any event, a few months later, in July, the federal government bought about 20 percent of the company’s shares through the state bank KfW for 300 million euros. In addition, it has promised financing of up to 252 million euros. It is about maintaining areas of great industrial policy importance in Germany and Europe, the Federal Ministry of Economics told the EdIn addition, they want to accelerate important technological developments. In principle, the federal government has set itself the goal of being more independent in the manufacture of active ingredients and in the production of vaccines.
Germany and Qatar as shareholders
In addition to the German state, the Qatari state fund and the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have also joined CureVac.
The company now aims to be approved in the middle of next year, explained research manager Mariola Fotin Mleczek in early October. That is the current planning. Meanwhile, top investor Hopp admitted that they could no longer win the race for the fastest vaccine. “But we want to win the race for the best vaccine, and we have a good chance there,” he told Handelsblatt in September.
It is not clear what the best remedy may be.
But whether the CureVac agent actually works better or is more tolerable than others in the end is not entirely clear. To be able to assess this, the results of large phase 3 studies are necessary, says Thomas Mertens. The virologist is chairman of the Vaccine Commission (STIKO) of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). So far, no such data exists for any agent. CureVac plans to begin its phase 3 study at the end of the year, provided the ongoing testing is successful.
In the end, it could also be, Mertens says, that an entirely different remedy turns out to be particularly good and effective. After all, according to the World Health Organization, researchers are working on nearly 200 different Covid-19 vaccines.
Public research project
The German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) is also running with a candidate vaccine. Scientists from the three locations in Munich, Marburg and Hamburg have developed a product that they now want to produce and test together with the IDT Biologika company from Dessau. The first subjects were vaccinated in Hamburg in October. This project also has the support of the federal government. IDT Biologika is the third company to receive money from the special financing program, up to 114 million euros.
This third project has been developed so far in public institutions. And unlike BioNTech and CureVac, which are now listed on the NASDAQ US stock exchange, IDT Biologika, with around 1,600 employees, is still owned by an entrepreneurial family. The owners are the brothers Stefan and Carsten Klocke from Baden-Württemberg.
The company already has a much longer history than the two new companies in Mainz and Tübingen. IDT Biologika was founded almost 100 years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former GDR vaccine plant was privatized.
Established focus
The DZIF project differs from BioNTech and CureVac not only structurally, but also in research approach. The DZIF scientists are building on an approach that has already been tested as a vaccine, the so-called vector vaccine. Here, a harmless virus serves as a means of transportation to smuggle parts of the coronavirus’ genetic information into the body. This new vaccine builds on previous research. The carrier virus used was developed more than 30 years ago at the University of Munich as a safe vaccine against smallpox and has already been used for the investigation of an agent against the MERS virus, another well-known coronavirus.
However, DZIF researchers and IDT Biologika employees do not expect their Covid 19 vaccine to be approved before the end of next year. But even then, the pandemic is unlikely to end. Experts anticipate that several very different vaccines will be needed in the long term. Because with some people one or the other could work better or worse. The best vaccine may not yet be tested. Also in Germany, scientists are still looking for a means against the corona virus in other projects.
