CureVac announced a collaboration with myNEO last month to look for neoantigens on the surface of tumor cells in order to develop mRNA-based cancer vaccines.
Moderna and BioNTech, and CureVac, are known as the "mRNA Troika". However, the Phase 3 clinical trial of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine developed by CureVac failed.
CureVac has fallen far behind Moderna and BioNTech due to the failure of the COVID-19 vaccine's research and development. Moderna now has a market value of more than 50 billion US dollars, BioNTech has a market value of 35 billion US dollars, and CureVac has a market value of less than 3 billion US dollars.
CureVac, which missed out on the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine dividend, is now banking on the next-generation COVID-19 mRNA vaccine and cancer vaccine.
CureVac announced the acquisition of Frame Cancer Therapeutics, a Dutch-based tumor immunotherapy company, for 32 million euros on June 8 in order to strengthen its presence in the tumor immunotherapy field. The acquisition will be paid for in CureVac stock, with 50% paid up front and the remaining 50% divided into milestone payments for both projects.
FramePro platform identifies structural changes in cancer genomes that may create new open reading frames (ORFs) that create new proteins not present in healthy tissue that can be recognized by the immune system as foreign, allowing them to be used to develop cancer vaccines.
Frame received approval from Dutch regulators in December 2021 for a personalized cancer vaccine clinical trial involving 15 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). CureVac will convert the cancer vaccine from peptide to mRNA form following the acquisition.
CureVac currently has mRNA for rabies and influenza in clinical stage, as well as a cancer vaccine in clinical stage, in addition to the next-generation mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. This mRNA cancer vaccine works by modulating the tumor microenvironment after intratumoral injection and inducing a systemic immune response to fight tumors. Patients with solid tumors such as advanced melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma are currently enrolled in a Phase 1 clinical trial.