Elon Musk plans to aid local Covid-19 drugmaker
Local drugmaker CureVac AG is getting a notable assistant in its mission to create a Covid-19 vaccine: Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.
CureVac, which is based in Germany with a U.S. headquarters in Boston, is developing a preventive drug for the novel coronavirus. Its drug uses messenger RNA taken from the virus to trick the human body into producing disease-fighting antibodies. CureVac is not alone in taking this approach to tackle Covid-19 — Cambridge-based Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA) and German firm BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) are currently testing messenger RNA vaccines.
Tesla, the Palo Alto-based electric vehicle manufacturer, plans to create what Musk referred to as “RNA microfactories” for CureVac and others.
“In principle, I think synthetic RNA (and DNA) has amazing potential. This basically makes the solution to many diseases a software problem,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
It is unclear what and how many units Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) will help create. CureVac has been independently developing small, portable RNA printers that could be stationed at hospitals and provide personalized doses of medication. Neither CureVac nor Tesla immediately responded to a request for comment.
Tesla recently overtook Toyota to become the world's most valuable carmaker. The company has facilities across the world, including in California, Nevada and Germany.
Those facilities have been home to Musk's controversial moves during the Covid-19 pandemic. The chief executive first refused to close the company’s Fremont factory in the face of shelter-in-place orders, and later restarted operations before the expiration of those shelter orders.
CureVac, meanwhile, recently received permission to begin the first clinical trial of its vaccine candidate in Germany.
It also received a $340 million investment from the German government in exchange for a 23% stake in the company. CureVac has also received an undisclosed amount of funding from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
If successful, the Covid-19 vaccine would be CureVac’s first commercial drug.
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2020/07/02/elon-musk-and-tesla-team-with-curevac.html
