Just jumping in to say that the successes of Pfizer/Moderna/AstraZeneca et al may have primed us to think that vaccines are usually successful but the reality is that these are the exceptions (happy ones!) [0] . I can't find the exact source but most clinical trials don't even move to Phase-3. So failures like CureVac - while sad news indeed - happen :(<p>[0]<a href="https://www.centerwatch.com/articles/12702-new-mit-study-puts-clinical-research-success-rate-at-14-percent" rel="nofollow">https://www.centerwatch.com/articles/12702-new-mit-study-put...</a>
Maybe they should include a baseline vaccine (say pfizer biontech) in their trails instead of just placebo and their own vaccine.<p>That would show whether the result is due to new variants of the virus or just different efficacy of the new vaccine.
> 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.<p>The number of people who had Covid-19 cases seem surprisingly low and there were at least 13 variants amongst 124 cases. The real challenge though lies in the interpretation : is the efficacy due to variants or due to vaccine's inability?<p><a href="https://www.curevac.com/en/2021/06/16/curevac-provides-update-on-phase-2b-3-trial-of-first-generation-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-cvncov/" rel="nofollow">https://www.curevac.com/en/2021/06/16/curevac-provides-updat...</a>
Interesting, if I understand correctly this is an mRNA vaccine too, just doesn’t seem to work that well (though I continue to be amazed at how small the sample sizes are).<p>What are some of the details that make two vaccines work so differently, even if they use the same underlying technology? Production quality, dosage, slight variation in the active ingredients..?