British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) and German biotech CureVac (NASDAQ: CVAC) have reached a 150 million euro ($180 million) deal to partner on the development of next-generation vaccines against COVID-19 that can target several variant strains in one shot.
Global health officials have become concerned that current vaccines, both in development and approved for emergency use, will be less effective against emerging variant strains of COVID-19. The idea behind a next-gen vaccine is to provide protection for people who have either not be vaccinated before, or have been vaccinated by a prior vaccine in the event that immunity against the virus lessens over time.
The new vaccine is planned to be based on messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology, which teaches how to make a protein that triggers an immune system response so that the body can prepare to come in contact with the real virus and protect against infection. The companies plan to introduce the next-gen vaccine in 2022, pending on the approval from regulatory agencies.
"We believe that next generation vaccines will be crucial in the continued fight against COVID-19," said Emma Walmsley, Chief Executive Officer at GSK, in a statement. "This new collaboration builds on our existing relationship with CureVac and means that together, we will combine our scientific expertise in mRNA and vaccine development to advance and accelerate the development of new COVID-19 vaccine candidates. At the same time, we will also support the production of CureVac's first generation vaccines with the manufacture of 100 million doses in 2021."
The partnership will build on CureVac's coronavirus vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, which is currently in late-stage clinical trials. The company's stated that CureVac's mRNA vaccine platform is "uniquely adapted" to design multivalent vaccines with "balanced immune response and a low dose of mRNA." Multivalent vaccines are developed to protect against multiple strains of a virus at once.
Under the deal, GSK will hold the marketing authorization for the next-gen vaccine and will have the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialize the vaccine in all countries expect Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
GSK has also agreed to support the production of up to 100 million doses of CureVac's CVnCoV vaccine candidate this year. CureVac's mRNA vaccine can be stored for three months at 35 to 46 Fahrenheit, which is standard refrigerator temperature. This gives CureVac's vaccine a logistical advantage over the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer (NYSE: PFE)-BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) and Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), which need to be shipped and stored at ultra-cold temperatures--something that many nations' healthcare systems cannot support on a mass scale.