ANKARA 

German pharmaceutical firms Bayer and CureVac said Thursday that they have agreed to collaborate on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Under the agreement, Bayer will support the further development, supply and key territory operations of CureVac´s COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Franz-Werner Haas, the chief executive officer of CureVac, sad they were happy to join forces with Bayer, and that its “expertise and infrastructure will help us make our vaccine candidate CVnCoV even more rapidly available to as many people as possible."

“Building on the positive data we have seen so far with CVnCoV, we now also have another strong partner on our side to get the vaccine to the people who need it following the receipt of the requisite regulatory approvals,” he said.

Last month, CureVac launched the final stage of clinical trials of its potential coronavirus vaccine. If the trials are successful, it will become the second German firm to develop a COVID-19 vaccine after BioNTech (in partnership with US pharma giant Pfizer).

Coronavirus vaccination campaign has begun in EU states, the US, UK, China and Russia, among others.

More than 15.5 million doses have been administered in at least 46 countries, according to Our World in Data, a global tracking website affiliated with Oxford University.

Over 367,000 people have so far been inoculated in Germany, which started the immunization drive on Dec. 27 last year.