A German company dismisses its CEO after meeting US President Donald Trump to discuss developing a vaccine for the Corona virus
German biomedicine company AGY CURE FAC has dismissed its chief executive officer, Daniel Menichella, after he met US President Donald Trump to discuss developing a vaccine for the Corona virus.
The founder and new CEO of the company, Ingmar Hower, stressed that “AGY CURE FAC” will continue to focus fully on reaching the next stage and developing the clinical product line in order to reach a vaccine against the emerging corona virus.
“On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I would like to thank Dan Menichella very much for the wonderful contributions he has made to CureVac in recent years”, said Hower.
He added: “Menichella started as a business chief at Agi Cure Vac and the CEO of the American subsidiary, Agi Cure Vac, before being appointed as CEO in 2018.
He developed our business including the first phase of our CV7202 rabies control program, and the first experience to treat immune tumors, in addition to the new Corona virus vaccine program.
He also indicated that he was largely responsible for cooperation agreements with Eli Lilly, CRISPR Therapeutics and the Danish biotechnology company Genmab.
In the details before the CEO’s dismissal, the company said that Daniel Menichella had discussed the development of the Coronavirus vaccine with US President Donald Trump and members of his team at the White House.
In a statement on its website, she added that Menichella had been invited to the White House to discuss strategies and opportunities for development and production of a vaccine for the Coronavirus.
She showed that Menichella said during the meeting that he was very confident of his company’s ability to develop an effective vaccine within a few months, and that data for rabies study could be relied on in its first stage, as all volunteers were immunized after taking a very low dose.
“On this basis, we are working intensively to achieve a very low dose of CoV vaccine as well,” he added, noting that AGY CURE FAC has an approved production facility that can produce up to 10 million dose of vaccine at once.
The company stated that it is currently selecting volunteers for the vaccine based on quality standards and biological activity, and confirmed that it is coordinating the development of its program with the German Paul Ehrlich Institute for the rapid clinical development of the vaccine, in addition to having discussions with other European health authorities.
She also stated that these steps would allow clinical trials to start in early summer and that two primary study centers had been identified and were under preparation.
The weekly “Welt am Sonntag” German newspaper revealed in a report about the existence of differences between Berlin and Washington over a German company in the province of Tübingen, southern Germany, in which work is being made to reach a vaccine against the Corona virus “Covid 19”, where the report confirmed that Trump tried to attract scientists Germans to his country with high financial transfers to ensure the vaccine exclusively for his country.
