By Olivia Bugault 
 

Shares in CureVac NV fell Tuesday in premarket trading after terminating its mRNA coronavirus vaccine manufacturing contracts with German chemical company Wacker Chemie AG and biotech company Celonic, noting that it will need less European production capacity than previously anticipated.

German biotech company CureVac trades down 7.6% premarket at its main listing in the U.S., while German-listed shares fall 8.6%. Shares in Wacker Chemie are largely flat after falling following the announcement.

"The decision was made in response to the reduced short-term peak demand for vaccines following the first wave of the pandemic vaccination efforts and corresponding changes in the demand of its first-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, currently under regulatory review with the European Medicines Agency," CureVac said.

Existing production and formulation deals with Rentschler Biopharma and Novartis AG remain in place despite the production adjustment, CureVac said.

CureVac had previously published disappointing interim data on the efficacy on its vaccine candidate CVnCoV. In June, it announced that its vaccine had demonstrated efficacy of 47% against Covid-19 in trials involving about 40,000 people.

In a separate release today, Wacker Chemie said the move won't have a significant impact on the earnings and sales of its biosolutions division this year. "And it does not change our medium-term targets for the Biosolutions division either," said Dr. Susanne Leonhartsberger, head of the unit.

In November last year, Wacker Chemie said it had signed a contract with CureVac for the production of more than 100 million doses of the vaccine annually at its site in Amsterdam. Production was supposed to begin in the first half of 2021.

 

Write to Olivia Bugault at olivia.bugault@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2021 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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