Curevac names the price: This is how much the corona vaccine will cost

Tuesday, August 18, 2020, 8:22 am
Curevac is one of the hopes for a corona vaccine. The biotech from Tübingen has recently been listed on the Nasdaq. The immensely successful IPO underscores the confidence of investors. Now the people of Tübingen are naming a price for their vaccine.

The Tübingen biotech Curevac has been listed on the Nasdaq since last week, and the start was extremely successful: the issue price was $ 16 at the upper end of the price range. Curevac has already collected $ 210 million - and the closing price on Friday was even $ 55.90. In after-hours trading, the price continued to rise to $ 85. The paper also rose at the beginning of the new week. In European trading, the share reached $ 72. So whoever bought at a starting price of 16 dollars has now increased his investment fivefold. However, the people of Tübingen could not celebrate their success personally - because of Corona, they were only allowed to ring the bell virtually.

Corona - that is also the decisive word in the company's current work. Curevac is developing a vaccine against the virus. Like Biontech or Moderna, the Tübingen-based researchers are researching a product based on messenger RNA. In an interview with the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", CEO Franz-Werner Haas explains that the development of the vaccine has already cost a "significant double-digit million amount". Haas expects around 400 million euros in costs by the time it is approved for the market.
 

Therefore, one of the main goals of the IPO was to raise money for the development of the corona vaccine. Around 150 million dollars (almost 130 million euros) are estimated from the proceeds. With a further 50 million dollars, the short-term production capacity for the agent is to be expanded.

Curevac aims to achieve "ethical margin" with virus vaccine
Haas also names a price for his vaccine: "A range of ten or 15 euros should be feasible. Development costs money, we have to earn that." In any case, it is clear to the Tübingen-based company that a vaccine must also generate profits for the owners of the biotech. "We cannot do that at cost price. We have investors who have been investing money in the company for ten years, so there should be a small return for them," said Curevac CFO Pierre Kemula in an interview with the Financial Times (Sunday) . Other companies working on a vaccine had announced that they would not make any profits with the drug, at least during the pandemic.

However, Curevac feels it has a duty to its shareholders. The biotech company assumes that its own vaccine candidate may be able to administer smaller doses than competitors'. "That would allow us a competitive price with which we could still achieve a certain ethical margin," said Kemula the paper. The manager didn't want to tell the newspaper how high the margin would be.

Curevac aims to achieve "ethical margin" with virus vaccine
Haas also names a price for his vaccine: "A range of ten or 15 euros should be feasible. Development costs money, we have to earn that." In any case, it is clear to the Tübingen-based company that a vaccine must also generate profits for the owners of the biotech. "We can't do that at cost. We have investors who have been investing money in the company for ten years, so there should be a small return for them," said Curevac CFO Pierre Kemula in an interview with the Financial Times (Sunday) . Other companies working on a vaccine had announced that they would not make any profits with the drug, at least during the pandemic.

However, Curevac feels it has a duty to its shareholders. The biotech company assumes that its own vaccine candidate may be able to administer smaller doses than competitors'. "That would allow us a competitive price with which we could still achieve a certain ethical margin," said Kemula the paper. The manager didn't want to tell the newspaper how high the margin would be.