Curevac is still in the red due to high research costs

The Tübingen biotech company Curevac is still in the red due to high research costs. The loss before taxes was 112.2 million euros in the first quarter, as a spokesman announced. The losses are mainly due to research and development costs for the corona vaccine CVnCov. In the first quarter of the previous year the loss was still 23.9 million euros. Curevac initially did not provide any information on earnings after taxes. Sales rose in the first three months of the year from 3.1 million euros in 2020 to 10 million euros. According to Curevac, the increase is mainly due to the collaboration with the British pharmaceutical company Glaxosmithkline (GSK). The two companies are working together to develop a corona vaccine. Curevac closed 2020 with a pre-tax loss of 129.8 million euros and justified this with high costs for research and development of the corona vaccine. The corona vaccine candidate CVnCov is currently in a rolling approval process at the European Medicines Agency. Curevac expects approval in June. As the company further announced, the first-generation corona vaccine will be tested in a study in Great Britain for its safety and effectiveness as a booster vaccine from the beginning of June. Around 3000 participants are said to receive the Curevac vaccine, among other things, after they have also been fully vaccinated with other vaccines. With booster vaccinations, protection should be refreshed some time after a vaccination has been completed. The results of the study are expected in September, it said. Together with GSK, Curevac is also currently developing a second-generation corona vaccine that is supposed to provide better protection against new virus variants.