CureVac issued a disappointing interim trial analysis June 16 for its COVID-19 vaccine, reporting its efficacy rate was just 47 percent.
The trial enrolled about 40,000 participants in Latin America and Europe. CureVac said at least 13 coronavirus variants were prevalent in the countries in which the trials were conducted.
CureVac assessed 134 COVID-19 cases in this analysis, sequencing all but 10 cases to identify the type of coronavirus causing the infection. The drugmaker found that only one was caused by the original coronavirus strain.
"While we were hoping for a stronger interim outcome, we recognize that demonstrating high efficacy in this unprecedented broad diversity of variants is challenging," CureVac CEO Franz-Werner Haas said in a news release. "As we are continuing toward the final analysis with a minimum of 80 additional cases, the overall vaccine efficacy may change. In addition, the variant-rich environment underlines the importance of developing next-generation vaccines as new virus variants continue to emerge."