Tesla Inc.’s (TSLA) CEO billionaire Elon Musk said that the electric car maker will be building so-called RNA microfactories to help Germany’s CureVac in the development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate.
Musk said in a Twitter post that Tesla was working on the mobile mRNA production units that CureVac calls RNA printers as a “side project”. The microfactories would be built at Tesla Grohmann Automation in Germany, Musk said in the thread. He added that the company could also take on additional partners in the future.
CureVac is developing a potential vaccine against the novel coronavirus based on its natural messenger substance mRNA technology. Back in May, CureVac announced positive pre-clinical results at a low dose for its lead vaccine candidate saying that it generated high level of virus neutralizing titers after two 2 microgram dose vaccinations.
Last month, the German vaccine maker received regulatory approval from German and Belgian authorities to initiate Phase 1 clinical trial of its virus vaccine candidate. Depending on the data of Phase 1 study, CureVac expects to start the next clinical trial phase with a significant number of participants in the autumn.
Tesla shares rose 8.4% to $1,214.15 in afternoon trading after the electric car maker exceeded analysts’ expectations for second-quarter car deliveries. The value of the stock has this year almost tripled.
Overall though Wall Street analysts are sidelined on the stock’s outlook. The Hold analyst consensus breaks down into 9 Sell ratings and 9 Hold ratings versus 8 Buy ratings. In light of the recent rally, the $805.85 average price target now implies 33% downside potential. (See Tesla’s stock analysis on TipRanks).
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