CureVac Gets €75 Million EIB Loan
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted German biotech CureVac a €75 million loan to support its ongoing development of vaccines against infectious diseases, including its Covid-19 candidate CVnCoV.
The cash injection also is designed to support CureVac’s efforts to expand its existing Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certified production capabilities and accelerate the completion of its new messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) production facility in Tübingen, Germany, where it plans to produce the vaccine.
EIB will provide the financing in three €25 million tranches upon completion of undisclosed pre-defined milestones.
Pierre Kemula, CureVac’s chief financial officer, said the loan will allow the company to further invest in its mRNA technology platform to fight life-threatening diseases. CureVac launched its Phase 1 clinical trial with CVnCoV last month.
The loan is backed by the Infectious Diseases Finance Facility (IDFF) of the EU's Horizon 2020 program under its budget for 2014-20.
EU commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, Mariya Gabriel, said that since the beginning of the pandemic the Commission has increased funding for the IDFF by by €400 million to allow the EIB to process a higher volume of projects.
Up to now, the bank has supported 13 companies with total lending of €316 million for developing cures, vaccines and diagnostics against various infectious diseases, most prominently the coronavirus.
Germany’s federal government recently announced plans to take a 23.1% stake, worth €300 million in CureVac but said it would not seek to influence corporate policy decisions.
The German funding will increase CureVac’s capital as well as going toward further development of its pipeline and the mRNA platform technology.
