TÜBINGEN, GERMANY and BOSTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / August 4, 2020 / CureVac today announced that Dr. Franz-Werner Haas, previously acting Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer (COO), has been appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Before Dr. Haas joined CureVac in June 2012, he worked as Vice President Operations and Chief Compliance Officer of SYGNIS Pharma AG, where he was responsible for the execution of M&A and capital market transactions. Dr. Haas started his professional career as an assistant to the management of a privately-held holding company before assuming several management positions in the life sciences industry, including Vice President and General Counsel of LION bioscience and General Counsel of Sirona Dental Systems. He studied law at the University of Saarbruecken, Catholic University of Leuven and the University of Edinburgh.

In addition to the appointment of Dr. Haas as CEO, CureVac has announced that Igor Splawski, Ph.D., joins the executive team as Chief Scientific Officer with immediate effect. In this role, he will be responsible for leading CureVac's mRNA biology research. Dr. Splawski comes to CureVac from the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), where he served for two years as Executive Director and Site Head of the NIBR Biologics Center in Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Splawski was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School from 2005 to 2008 and has a Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Utah. He is an inventor on 26 patents and an author of 22 research publications.

About CureVac

CureVac is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in the field of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology with 20 years of expertise in developing and optimizing this versatile molecule for medical purposes. The principle of CureVac's proprietary technology is the use of mRNA as a data carrier to instruct the human body to produce its own proteins capable of fighting a wide range of diseases. The company applies its technologies for the development of cancer therapies, antibody therapies, the treatment of rare diseases, and prophylactic vaccines. CureVac has received significant investments, amongst others from dievini Hopp BioTech holding, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the German Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). CureVac has also entered into collaborations with multinational corporations and organizations, including Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Genmab, CRISPR Therapeutics, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CEPI and others. CureVac is headquartered in Tübingen, Germany with sites in Frankfurt and Boston, USA.

For more information, please visit www.curevac.com or follow us on Twitter at @CureVacAG.

CureVac Media Contact
Thorsten Schüller, Corporate Communications
CureVac AG, Tübingen, Germany
T: +49 7071 9883-1577
thorsten.schueller@curevac.com

CureVac Investor Contact
Dr. Sarah Fakih, Vice President Investor Relations
CureVac AG, Tübingen, Germany
T: +49 7071 9883-1298
sarah.fakih@curevac.com

SOURCE: CureVac