FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Bayer AG has terminated a vaccine manufacturing partnership under which it would have helped produce CureVac’s COVID-19 shot, a spokesperson for Bayer told a German newspaper.
The news comes after CureVac earlier this week said it will give up on its first-generation COVID-19 vaccine https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/curevac-withdraw-first-generation-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-2021-10-12 candidate and instead focus on collaborating with GSK to develop improved mRNA vaccine technology.
“Jointly with CureVac we have decided by mutual agreement to not continue the cooperation,” the Bayer spokesperson told Rheinische Post.
Bayer in February said it expected to produce 160 million doses of the CureVac shot in 2022 at its Wuppertal site in western Germany.
(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Bill Berkrot)