‘We’re Racing Time’: Biotech Companies Rush To Complete Coronavirus Vaccine

Anne De Groot speaking with a lab scientist at EpiVax. (Angus Chen/WBUR)

As deaths and new infections from the novel coronavirus rise, mainly in China, scientists are working as fast as they can to develop a vaccine that might stem the epidemic.

Time is not on their side.

If scientists are unable to create a vaccine before the virus spreads further and begins mutating, their efforts won’t be as effective in preventing a global pandemic.

“We’re racing time — the virus itself,” says Dan Manichella, the CEO of CureVac, a German biotech company with offices in Cambridge, and one of several companies developing a vaccine. “People are working a lot of long hours.”

Last month, Chinese researchers published the full genome of the new coronavirus and companies both large and small have jumped into the effort. The genetic code is the key to creating a vaccine.

Read the rest of this story at WBUR’s website.