The agreement benefiting CureVac is said to have followed a months-long effort by Brussels to persuade the White House to drop or ease some of its export curbs following the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president. The exceptions for the German company are reportedly the result of regular meetings between the White House Covid-19 taskforce led by Biden aide Jeffrey Zients and an EU team of experts chaired by EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton.

A conundrum for Tübingen-based CureVac is that the US is prioritizing requests from EU manufacturers whose vaccines are already approved. While its candidate is still in late stage trials, the company has said it hopes to be able to file for EU approval soon. Brussels has ordered 400 million doses. In presenting Q2 2021 financial results on May 26, CEO Franz-Werner Haas said a “second-generation” vaccine candidate it is developing with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), called CV2CoV, should enter clinic trials in Q3.

Commenting on the US decision to ease some restrictions, two unidentified EU officials told Reuters that this will enable CureVac to produce vaccines until August 2021, though conditions beyond that date remain uncertain. The Serum Institute of India has also repeatedly slammed the US restrictions, though India itself has curbed exports as infection rates there have soared.

Filters and bioreactor bags are counted among products generally in short supply. Some US players, too, including Novavax, have complained that they are unable to obtain bags. Germany’s Merck KGaA, which is supporting companies developing or producing Covid-19 vaccines and treatments, has said the DPA has also hampered its efforts. Merck is investing at US and French sites to ramp up output but the new French capacity is not due on stream until the end of this year.

With overall pressure on the manufacturing supply chain remaining intense, CureVac CEO Haas earlier this month told German magazine Der Spiegel that items it has had difficulty procuring included special plastic containers and nucleotides, the chemical building blocks needed to make mRNA. “At times we live from hand to mouth,” he said at the time.

While the German biotech has acknowledged receiving procurement help, it has not disclosed details on what the rules waiver covers. "CureVac is grateful that with the help of the EU and US officials, some critical issues could be resolved," the company said in a statement to Reuters.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist