CureVac provides update on phase IIb/III HERALD study of first generation COVID 19 candidate,CVnCoV.

In total, 134 Covid-19 cases were assessed in this interim analysis. Out of these cases, 124 were sequenced to identify the variant causing the infection. The outcome confirms that only one single case was attributable to the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. More than half of the cases (57%) were caused by Variants of Concern. Most of the remaining cases were caused by other less characterised variants such as Lambda or C.37, first identified in Peru (21%) and B.1.621, first identified in Colombia (7%). In this context, the interim results suggest efficacy in younger participants but did not allow to conclude on efficacy in the age group above 60.

The HERALD study , conducted by Curevac in conjunction with Bayer, enrolled approximately 40,000 participants in ten countries in Latin America and Europe. The second interim analysis included 134 cases, occurring at least two weeks after administration of the second dose. To identify strains causing COVID-19 infections within the trial, sequencing of virus variants has so far been performed on 474 COVID-19 cases, of which 124 fulfilled adjudication criteria and were included in the present efficacy analysis.

CureVac reported that CVnCoV, was just 47% effective against COVID-19 in a key late-stage trial, far lower than the near 95% efficacy seen for the mRNA rivals from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.