Swiss pharmaceutical company: Novartis sticks to CureVac vaccine

The corona vaccine from CureVac from Tübingen has shown an effectiveness of only 48 percent in studies. Nevertheless, the pharmaceutical company Novartis has started producing the vaccine.

In the first three months of the year, the pandemic had prevented patients from seeing a doctor. This put a strain on the business of pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis from Basel. But meanwhile, among other things, the global vaccination campaigns are ensuring a recovery. Novartis reports sales of around eleven billion euros for the second quarter. This is an increase of 14 percent compared to the same period in the previous year, when business was bad because of the lockdown measures. The profit amounted to the equivalent of more than 2.4 billion euros.

CureVac hopes for buyers in the EU

A large part goes back to the division with innovative drugs, such as a heart drug and a drug against psoriasis. Novartis is also active in the field of Covid-19 vaccines. The production of the vaccine by the Tübingen biotech company CureVac has started. 50 million cans are to be delivered from the factory in Kundl, Austria, this year.

Although the vaccine has only been shown to be 48 percent effective in studies, CureVac is still hoping for use by the European Union. In addition to CureVac, Novartis also supports BioNTech and Pfizer in the production of their vaccines. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant assumes that business will continue to pick up overall in the second half of the year. The aim is to achieve an increase in sales in the low to mid single-digit percentage range. The profit should increase in the middle single-digit range.