Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the automaker has become the manufacturing partner of biotech firm CureVac, which is working on a COVID-19 vaccine based on its RNA technology.
CureVac is a company based in Germany that develops messenger RNA-based (mRNA) therapies, a promising technology to cure a large number of diseases.
In recent years, they have been developing novel flu vaccines, making them pioneers in finding a solution for COVID-19.
In May, they published positive results regarding their vaccine candidate:
CureVac AG, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of optimized mRNA-based transformative drugs, today announced low-dose, positive preclinical results for its leading vaccine candidate for the new Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). . The data showed rapid induction of a balanced immune response with high levels of virus neutralizing (VNT) titers and T-cell responses. VNTs are an important criterion supporting that the vaccine candidate has the potential to induce a strong response. immunological to neutralize SARS-CoV-2.
A few weeks later, they obtained a $ 300 million investment from the German government.
Now what does this have to do with Tesla?
Last night on Twitter, CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla is working with CureVac to build “microfactories” for them:
“Tesla, as a side project, is building RNA microfactories for CureVac and possibly others”
The CEO added about his promising RNA technology:
“In principle, I think synthetic RNA (and DNA) has incredible potential. Basically, this makes solving many diseases a software problem. “
Musk confirmed that Tesla’s Automation group, also known as Tesla Grohmann in Germany, is working with CureVac on the project.
The taking of Electrek
While Tesla has put some resources into building fans in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, this appears to be a bigger step to get involved in the biotech field.
Tesla is drawing on its manufacturing expertise and is basically becoming a manufacturing partner for RNA companies.
It’s actually not that surprising since Grohmann Engineering was doing things like that before Tesla bought it and let all the other customers focus on the automaker.
You’d think the team would be busy building Gigafactory Berlin these days though.
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