Curevo has set its sights on competing with GSK’s shingles vaccine dominance by securing $110m and securing a former executive from the UK big pharma to advance its candidate amezosvatein.
The financing was gained via a Series B funding round, which was led by European investment company Medicxi. OrbiMed, Sanofi Ventures and HBM Healthcare Investments also participated in the financing round as new investors.
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US-based Curevo will use the money to fund an extension of a Phase II programme (NCT05304351) for amezosvatein, a non-mRNA adjuvanted subunit vaccine. An additional 640 healthy volunteers will be injected with the vaccine to ascertain a dose ahead of Phase III trials. The trial is slated to begin in mid-2025, according to Curevo CEO George Simeon.
Shingles is an infection that can cause a painful rash anywhere on the body. It is caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus in infected patients, the same microorganism that causes chickenpox.
As its candidate advances through clinical trials, Curevo is setting up future rivalry with GSK’s Shingrix (zoster vaccine recombinant) – the only US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved vaccine for the prevention of shingles. Being the only product on the market, GSK’s vaccine has dominated the shingles prevention landscape since its approval in the US in 2017. Shingrix nearly made it to blockbuster status in pound sterling currency in 2024, generating £848m ($1.06bn). Analysis by GlobalData’s Pharma Intelligence Center forecasts the drug will bypass $5bn in sales by 2028. Zostavax, a vaccine developed by MSD and previously FDA-approved, was discontinued in the country in 2020 due to Shingrix’s better effectiveness and safety.
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Amezosvatein has already shown non-inferiority to Shingrix in the Phase II trial. The candidate demonstrated a 100% vaccine response compared to the 97.9% response elicited by GSK’s product. The head-to-head trial between the two vaccines also found reduced rates of solicited local and systemic adverse events in favour of Curevo’s asset.
Curevo’s executive hirings
Some of the brains behind Shingrix’s success will be heading over to Curevo, with the company revealing that it is adding former GSK vaccine lead Moncef Slaoui to its board of directors. Slaoui spent nearly 30 years at the big pharma, helping develop vaccines such as HPV-induced cervical cancer vaccine Cervarix (human papillomavirus bivalent vaccine) and malaria jab Mosquirix (RTS,S/AS01), in addition to Shingrix. Most recently, Slaoui served as chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, a US public-private partnership created to enhance response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I have been collaborating with the Curevo team for several weeks now,” Slaoui said in a statement.
“I’m very excited to work with them to help perfect shingles vaccination, adding good tolerability to the exceptional efficacy achieved by the current vaccine. The data so far show Curevo’s adjuvant technology has the attributes to succeed in this endeavour.”
Also joining the board of directors is Tal Zaks, former chief medical officer of Moderna. Zaks oversaw the development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against SARS-Cov-2 and held drug development positions at GSK and Sanofi.
Similar to Shingrix, amezosvatein uses virus-host receptor protein glycoprotein E. Curevo states, however, its candidate contains an optimised version of the TLR4 (Toll-like receptor 4) agonist proven by GSK’s vaccine to be biologically active in shingles vaccination. Zaks says the potentially increased tolerability from this improvement could position amezosvatein as the first-choice shingles vaccine in the future.
Whilst its candidate is performing well in trials, Curevo is eyeing a market expected to operate with higher uncertainty due to vaccine scrutiny from the new US Government. Health and Human Services (HHS) head Robert F Kennedy Jr has continually questioned the safety and effectiveness of vaccines on the US immunisation schedule, which includes Shingrix.
GSK’s chief commercial officer Luke Miels said the company expects its vaccine sales to decrease this year in part due to potential changes in US vaccination policies.
