German pharmaceutical company CureVac says it has enrolled the first participant in the phase 3 clinical study of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The Tuebingen-based company says the study is expected to include more than 35,000 participants at sites in Europe and Latin America.
“With the start of the pivotal Phase 2b/3 study, we have reached another important milestone in the development of our vaccine candidate, CVnCoV,” Franz-Werner Haas, the CEO of CureVac, said in a statement Monday.
The company expects first results of its phase 3 study by the end of March.
CureVac began development of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate last January.
Earlier studies showed that the newly developed vaccine was “generally well tolerated across all tested doses and induced strong antibody responses," the company wrote. ”The quality of immune response was comparable to recovered COVID-19 patients, closely mimicking the immune response after natural COVID-19 infection.”
Another German company, BioNTech, helped develop the first vaccine approved for use in the United States, together with U.S. company Pfizer. It is also based on mRNA technology.