* Company valued at $1.6 billion
* Follows investments from Qatar and GlaxoSmithKline
(Updates with details, background)
FRANKFURT/BENGALURU, July 24 (Reuters) - German biotech
CureVac said on Friday it had filed for an initial public
offering in the United States as it races to develop a vaccine
for COVID-19.
The company, valued at around $1.6 billion and backed by
Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates whose foundation
has been a shareholder and provided grants, started its clinical
study in healthy volunteers in June.
Results of the safety-focused trial are expected in the
fourth quarter of 2020, regulatory filings showed.
It previously had said approval was possible in the middle
of next year, under favourable conditions.
CureVac's filing, which confirms previous reports by Reuters
of plans to launch an IPO, comes days after it raised 560
million euros ($652 million), giving the German government a 19%
stake, the filing showed.
At the same time, British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc
got a 9% stake in the company and Qatar Investment
Authority (QIA) a 3.5% stake.
Earlier this year, German government officials, concerned
over reports that the U.S. government was attempting to acquire
CureVac or its assets, voiced support for keeping CureVac
German.
The German government had disclosed plans in June to invest
a stake to further aid the development of the company's COVID-19
vaccine program.
Software firm SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp, who
once held more than an 80% stake in CureVac, has agreed to
purchase shares worth 100 million euros ($116.37 million) at the
IPO.
Tuebingen-based CureVac is a pioneer in the so-called
messenger RNA approach for developing vaccines and monoclonal
antibodies (mAbs) for infectious diseases.
The approach, also being deployed in experimental COVID-19
vaccines by BioNTech and partner Pfizer and Moderna
, is yet to be approved in any therapy.
Founded in 2000, CureVac has more than 450 employees, 116 of
whom have advanced scientific degrees, the company said.
The underwriters for the IPO are Bank of America,
Credit Suisse, Jefferies and Kempen & Co. (https://bit.ly/2CNnZ2X)
($1 = 0.8593 euros)
(Reporting by Tom Sims Frankfurt, Alexander Huebner in Munich,
and Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)