UPDATE 1-CureVac's COVID-19 vaccine attracts rising interest

* Says more requests have come in over past few days

* Says to start testing on children as young as 12 this
month

* Side effect scare over J&J, Astra shots clouds vaccine
rollout
(Adds details on children, supply contract, output goal)

By Ludwig Burger

FRANKFURT, April 15 (Reuters) - German biotech firm CureVac
said it has seen the number of requests for its
experimental COVID-19 vaccine increase over the past few days,
as concerns over rare side effects have hit some other
coronavirus shots.

A CureVac spokesman said on Thursday that requests have been
coming in from various quarters, including governments and
international organisations but he declined to elaborate. The
group is to hold an analyst call on fourth-quarter results at
1400 GMT.

The European Union in November secured up to 405 million
doses of CureVac's two-shot vaccine, which has yet to win
regulatory approval, the company's only large supply contract so
far.

Europe's choppy vaccine rollout hit more trouble this week
after Johnson & Johnson (J&J) suspended shipments of its
COVID-19 shot and Denmark said it would drop a similar vaccine
from AstraZeneca over very rare cases of blood clotting.

In many European countries, AstraZeneca's shot has been
limited to the elderly as the side effect in question, clotting
in the brain, has primarily been seen in young and middle-aged
vaccine recipients.

CureVac said in a statement on Thursday that it would start
testing its COVID-19 vaccine on adolescents as young as 12 at
the end of the month, as it gets ready to publish initial
efficacy results for adults in the second quarter.

The spokesman reiterated the group - which is backed by
investors Dietmar Hopp, the Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline
as well as the German government - hoped to file for
regulatory approval at the end of May or early June.

CureVac said it would initially enrol about 40 adolescents
aged 12 to 17 in Peru and Panama, the first stage of a broader
study in this age group.

Its ongoing pivotal Phase 2b/3 study known as Herald, and
initiated in December, has completed recruitment with over
40,000 adult participants in Europe and Latin America, the
company said on Thursday.

Nasdaq-listed CureVac repeated it aims to produce
up to 300 million doses of the vaccine in 2021 and up to 1
billion in 2022.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, editing by Emma Thomasson and
Susan Fenton)