J&J intensifies vaccine endeavour with Bavarian Nordic

Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic A/S has expanded its collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a unit of US life sciences company Johnson & Johnson, to also grant the drugmaker the worldwide exclusive rights to its MVA-BN technology for vaccine programmes targeting hepatitis B and HIV-1. Bavarian said the total potential deal value was up to US$879m – including upfront, equity investment, and milestone payments. Bavarian will receive an upfront payment of US$10m. As part of the package, Johnson & Johnson Innovation JJDC, Inc. will subscribe for US$33m worth of Bavarian Nordic shares as part of the new agreement. Hence, Bavarian Nordic plans to issue a maximum of 3,142,354 shares of DKK10 each. This equals approximately 9.9% of the existing share capital of the company.

The two companies are already collaborating to develop vaccines for Human Papillomavirus (HPV, since 12/15) and Ebola (since 10/14) employing technologies from both companies. „We are very excited about this additional collaboration with Janssen, and proud to deploy our MVA-platform in the fight against two diseases with such an enormous impact on global health,“ said Paul Chaplin, President & CEO of Bavarian Nordic. „This agreement builds upon the science and data we have seen to date, which has shown the potential that a combination of our two platforms could serve many patients in a wide range of disease areas. We welcome this expansion of what has already been a fantastic relationship between our two companies.“ Similar to prior agreements, Janssen will be responsible for all clinical development, while manufacturing of MVA-BN will be retained by Bavarian Nordic.

Bavarian’s shares – already on the rise for a couple of months – reached a multi-year pinnacle at around DKK417.

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