The international vaccine rollout encountered a new obstacle Thursday when CureVac released a set of disappointing late stage trial results that sent its shares tumbling while analysts slashed their price targets. CureVac said on Wednesday its COVID-19 vaccine was only 47% effective in a late-stage Phase 2b/3 3 trial, missing the study’s target and casting doubt upon the potential delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to the EU. The disappointing efficacy of the shot, known as CVnCoV, emerged from an interim analysis based on 134 COVID-19 cases in the study with about 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America. The importance of CureVac has increased in Europe after several EU governments i mposed age limits on the use of the J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines due to a link to extremely rare but potentially fatal clotting disorders, Reuters reports. The company’s shares dropped more than 50% on the news.
