Ingmar Hoerr was born in 1968 in Neckarsulm. After his civilian service as a paramedic from 1988 to 1990, he studied biology at the University of Tübingen, including a year in India, and finished his PhD in 1999.
His research asked whether mRNA vanishes the moment it enters the body. Working with stabilised RNA in mice, he showed it did not decay as fast as expected. He applied for his first mRNA patent on 9 September 1999.
In 2000 he founded CureVac in Tübingen with Steve Pascolo, Florian von der Mülbe, Günther Jung and Hans-Georg Rammensee. The company won a Baden-Württemberg innovation prize in 2007 and a €2 million EU vaccine prize in 2014, and by 2017 it was valued at €1.4 billion.
In 2020 the German state bank KfW invested €300 million for about 23%, and CureVac listed on Nasdaq on 14 August, raising $213 million. In June 2021 its Covid vaccine candidate showed 47% efficacy and it was dropped in October 2021. BioNTech agreed a $1.25 billion all-stock deal in June 2025, completed on 18 December 2025.