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Tübingen (dpa / lsw) - vaccines from a printer?
The Tübingen biotech company Curevac wants to start producing vaccines with such small, mobile production facilities from this summer.
After a prototype, two further developed devices are currently being installed in a clean room in Tübingen, as a spokesman announced.
A clean room is a room that has an extremely low concentration of airborne particles.
Numerous medical products have to be manufactured in a clean room.
According to the company spokesman, the production of the messenger molecule mRNA with a printer is no longer restricted by large-scale plant production and one can react quickly to disease outbreaks.
The advantage is that mRNA vaccines can be produced directly where they are needed and that worldwide.
To do this, genetic information from a virus is fed into the printer, just like a print job, which then automatically produces the appropriate vaccine.
According to the Curevac spokesman, the company is currently developing several strategic models for global sales.
Curevac did not want to comment on the price of such a device.
"It will definitely be cheaper than permanently installed production facilities," said the spokesman.
The building instructions for the production of proteins are contained in the messenger molecule mRNA.
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According to the Curevac spokesman, you have to imagine the prototype as a mini-factory with a length of four to five meters and a width and height of two meters each.
The RNA printer can be stationed in hospitals in order to produce and offer personalized medicine on site.
In a period of a few weeks, he could produce hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses.
But that always depends on the dose of the drug in question.
On the micro-factories, Curevac works with the Tesla subsidiary Grohmann Automation (Rhineland-Palatinate).
Tesla Grohmann Automation claims to be one of the world's leading companies for highly automated production systems.
Curevac founder Ingmar Hoerr recently told the German Press Agency that Tesla boss Elon Musk only had to be convinced during a crisis discussion in Palo Alto that Curevac needed Grohmann's know-how for these portable printers.
Alluding to Tesla's "Starship", which will someday transport cargo and people to the moon and Mars, he said to Tesla: "The printer is also a kind of trip to the moon."
Musk then personally made sure that work with the printer could continue, said Hoerr.
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Like the vaccine from Biontech and its US partner Pfizer, the Curevac vaccine is based on the messenger molecule mRNA, which stimulates the formation of a virus protein in the body.
This triggers an immune response that is supposed to protect people from the virus.
Around 35,000 participants in Europe and Latin America are currently participating in Curevac's Phase III study.
Interim results should be available at the beginning of the second quarter.
Then Curevac also expects a possible approval.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) started the rapid testing procedure for the vaccine in mid-February.
The decision is based on the preliminary results of laboratory tests and clinical studies.
According to the EMA, this makes it clear that the vaccine stimulates the production of antibodies against the coronavirus.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210302-99-649545 / 2