What happened
Actions of CureVac (NASDAQ: CVAC) rose nearly 17% on Thursday after the company announced it had found a famous and well-capitalized partner to help get its coronavirus vaccine to market.
And
CureVac said it signed a collaboration and services agreement with a global pharmaceutical powerhouse Bayer (OTC: BAYR.Y) regarding the first candidate vaccine against coronavirus, CVnCoV.
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CureVac said that under the agreement, whose financial terms have not been made public, “CureVac will be the Marketing Authorization Holder for the product, while Bayer will support CureVac with operations in European Union (EU) countries and selected additional markets. ” Bayer also has options to become the marketing authorization holder outside Europe, added its partner.
According to biotechnology, this agreement positions it to supply “hundreds of millions” of doses of the vaccine worldwide. Last month, CVnCoV entered phase 3 of clinical trials. As it is still under evaluation, it has not been approved for use anywhere.
What now
It is difficult to judge precisely how this can impact the fundamentals of CureVac, since we do not know the financial structure of the business. And it goes without saying that there is no guarantee that CVnCoV will be successful in its current testing round, not to mention that it will win regulatory approval.
That said, no matter the terms of the company’s partnership with Bayer, it will be a great advantage for CVnCoV to have such a powerful international partner, if it is well tested and finally reaches the market. The rise in today’s stock price was justified on that basis.