CureVac has made its second notable deal with Big Pharma this year, this time partnering with Boehringer Ingelheim to offer its investigational lung cancer vaccine in a $45 million deal with potential milestone payments of up to $556 million.
Under the deal, Boehringer Ingelheim will gain global commercial rights to CureVac's CV9202, an experimental therapeutic mRNA vaccine in early clinical development for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The German pharma giant plans to pair it with Gilotrif (afatinib) for advanced or metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor-mutated NSCLC as well as in combination with chemo-radiation therapy in patients with unresectable--or inoperable--stage III NSCLC.
Designed to mobilize a patient's own immune system into action against a tumor, CV9202 is a combination of mRNA molecules coding for 6 antigens overexpressed in lung cancer.
CV9202 and its predecessor, CV9201, also from the RNActive series, were tested in initial clinical trials by CureVac and showed promising activity in generating immune responses against all antitumor antigens. One of the biggest draws of CureVac's RNActive vaccines lies in their ability to withstand high temps and unintentional freezing.
In July, Sanofi's ($SNY) vaccine unit tapped CureVac in a $205 million-plus deal for an mRNA-based vaccine intended for an undisclosed pathogen.
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