Dive Brief:
- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is investing $52 million in Germany-based CureVac, which has a novel mRNA platform.
- The CureVac platform uses messenger RMA as a data carrier, which catalyzes cell to produce disease-fighting proteins and uses this technology to support vaccine R&D.
- The Gates Foundation is following the lead of both Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim, both of which have invested in CureVac to further their own vaccine-development efforts .
Dive Insight:
The funding from the Gates Foundation will help CureVac build out their manufacturing facility. The focus in terms of vaccine development will be on vaccines against the infectious diseases that are most prevalent and deadly in developing countries.
Underlying this initiative is a larger trend—the trend of developing therapeutics that use the body's own immune system to fight disease, with presumably more effectiveness and fewer adverse events.