On Mar. 23, 2021, CureVac announced publication of preclinical data demonstrating that their COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, protected against challenge infections with the SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern B.1.351 (aka ﾓSouth Africanﾔ variant) and a strain of the original SARS-CoV-2 B1 lineage (BavPat1) in a transgenic mouse model.

Consistent with available variant studies, the neutralization capacity of robust antibody titers was shown to be impacted by the B.1.351 variant compared to the original strain. However, vaccinated animals were fully protected from lethal challenge infections with both strains. The full manuscript of the preclinical data was published on the bioRxiv preprint server.