For the time being, Germany will no longer rely on the Covid vaccine from the Tübingen-based manufacturer CureVac.

In the federal government's procurement planning for 2022, which Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) presented to the Federal Cabinet on Wednesday, the CureVac vaccine does not appear any more than the vaccine from the British-Swedish manufacturer AstraZeneca (AZ).

The latter has been in use in the EU since January, and despite production difficulties, the company should meet its delivery obligations with the EU by September.

However, the approval of the CureVac vaccine is still pending.

The federal government had acquired a quarter of the CureVac shares a year ago.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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    Ilka Kopplin

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      Spahn calculates for the coming year with a vaccine order totaling 204 million doses for Germany.

      This guarantees, including a “safety reserve”, that a good two doses of vaccine will be available for every citizen in Germany in 2022, the minister said on Thursday in Berlin.

      The basic equipment is the 84.4 million doses of the preparation from BioNTech / Pfizer, which will make up the German share of the EU order for that vaccine for 2022.

      In addition, 31.8 million cans of Moderna are to be added.

      Like those from BioNTech / Pfizer and CureVac, this vaccine is based on mRNA technology.

      But he continues to build on a "two-plus-two strategy," said Spahn. In addition to the two mRNA preparations, he wants to keep vaccines in his portfolio that are based on vector and protein technology. Therefore, he will also order 18.3 million doses of the vaccine from Johnson & Johnson, which, like the AZ vaccine, is a vector vaccine. In addition, around 70 million doses of protein-based preparations are planned. Of this, 42.7 million will go to Sanofi, 16.3 million to Novavax and 11 million to Valneva. None of these three vaccines are approved yet; So one third of Spahn relies on preparations that are still pending approval. The minister said that the three manufacturers are already "relatively far" with the development. In addition, the EU has already concluded contracts with these companies that have yet to be fulfilled.

      "A conscious political decision"

      Of course, this also applies to the CureVac order.

      Spahn also justified the fact that Berlin booked out the Tübingen manufacturer for the time being with the “technology mix” he was aiming for.

      It is undisputed that BionTech / Pfizer and Moderna are currently far ahead of CureVac.

      For the entire portfolio, it does not make sense to plan with more than two mRNA preparations, which is why CureVac falls out of the order plan for the time being.

      However, a mixed portfolio makes sense.

      “A year ago everyone said the most promising vaccines were coming from AstraZeneca and CureVac.

      It turned out to be right that we did not follow this logic and that the EU relied on a broader portfolio. "

      He wanted to maintain this policy, since further scientific knowledge about the duration of the vaccination protection after the first immunization and about the protection against new virus variants would be pending. "There are uncertainties that do not allow a reliable prediction of the need for certain vaccine quantities of certain vaccine types," says Spahn's submission to the cabinet. The minister added that the Federal Audit Office would certainly object to his ordering strategy. "But that is a conscious political decision."

      CureVac confirmed on Thursday that expectations of its vaccine have not been met for the time being.

      The final data from the large clinical study would have confirmed the disappointing values ​​from the previous interim analysis, it said in Tübingen.

      Accordingly, the vaccine showed an overall effectiveness of 48 percent against Covid 19 disease “of any severity.

      A "significant protective effect" was achieved in the age group between 18 and 60 years.

      For the group over 60 years of age, the cases would not have been sufficient to be statistically unambiguous.

      No defeat for him

      It has been shown that the CureVac preparation can make a valuable contribution to public health "if study participants between 18 and 60 years of age are completely protected from hospitalization or death and with an effectiveness of 77 percent from moderate and severe disease" said CEO Franz-Werner Haas. In this “core population” there is still a great need all over the world.

      CureVac started the study with around 40,000 subjects in Latin America and Europe at the end of 2020.

      A little later, virus variants spread increasingly.

      A total of 15 virus strains appeared at the time of the final analysis, it said.

      The original variant has been almost completely displaced, said Haas.

      The final data is based on 228 Covid cases, of which 83 occurred in the vaccine group.

      CureVac is now working “with full commitment” for approval with the EU Medicines Agency EMA, where the vaccine has been evaluated in a rolling process for several months.

      CureVac has concluded a supply contract with the EU for up to 405 million cans. Assuming approval, you have a delivery obligation, and the EU also has a purchase obligation, said Haas. The EU decides where the EU ultimately uses the cans. Haas does not see the fact that the vaccine may no longer be used in Germany as a defeat. In late summer, CureVac was launched on the New York technology exchange Nasdaq. The share price fell more than 15 percent on Thursday.