Benzinga | Mar 30, 2021 09:27AM EDT

CureVac Taps Celonic For COVID-19 Vaccine Production

* CureVac BV (NASDAQ: CVAC) has partnered with Celonic Group, a Contract Development, and Manufacturing Organization, to produce CureVac's mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV.

* The commercial supply agreement includes manufacturing of the mRNA drug substance and LNP formulation of the bulk drug product at Celonic's manufacturing facility in Heidelberg, Germany.

* In total, Celonic will be prepared to manufacture more than 100 million doses of CVnCoV. More than 50 million doses are expected to be produced before the end of 2021.

* Under the terms of the initial agreement, technology and knowledge transfer are already underway.

* CureVac reaffirms an expected output capacity of its broad European manufacturing network of up to 300 million doses in 2021.

* CureVac has entered into several strategic partnerships for the further development, production, and commercialization of CVnCoV.

* In January, it signed a collaboration agreement with Bayer regarding CureVac's current CVnCoV currently in Phase 2b/3.

* In February, CureVac and GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK) agreed to develop next-generation mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 jointly.

* Price Action: CVAC shares are down 0.5% at $86.2 in premarket trading on the last check Tuesday.