Britain’s GSK has said that it would invest 130 million pounds ($163 million) to buy a 10% stake in Germany’s CureVac, launching a collaboration to develop up to five mRNA-based vaccines with technology already being used by the biotech company to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

CureVac’s existing COVID-19 mRNA and rabies vaccines research programmes are not included in the deal, the companies said. CureVac said in June it would start human trials of an experimental vaccine for treating COVID-19 in the country.

The company, based in Tuebingen and backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is using the so-called messenger RNA approach that has also been adopted by BioNTech and its partner Pfizer as well as Moderna.

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