ExpreS2ion Announces Bavarian Nordic Enters Agreement with AdaptVac to Advance the COVID-19 Vaccine Program
Hørsholm, Denmark, May 06, 2020 – ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB (“ExpreS2ion”) hereby announces that its joint venture AdaptVac has entered into an exclusive head of terms agreement with Bavarian Nordic, a global leader in the development, manufacture and commercialization of life-saving vaccines, to license the COVID-19 vaccine. The parties seek to enter into the final license agreement within the next two months. Upon execution of a final license agreement, Bavarian Nordic will pay AdaptVac an initial upfront payment in addition to future development and sales milestones and royalties. ExpreS2ion will retain a portion of the future milestone payments and royalties of AdaptVac’s revenue stream.
ExpreS2ion and its joint venture partner AdaptVac are engaged in the development of a unique capsid virus-like particle (VLP) COVID-19 vaccine, partly sponsored through a Horizon 2020 EU grant award to the PREVENT-nCoV consortium to rapidly advance the vaccine candidate against COVID-19 into the clinic. The members of the consortium hold preclinical and clinically validated experience from working with similar Coronaviruses such as MERS and SARS, as well as malaria vaccines, using AdaptVac’s capsid VLP technology and ExpreS2ion’s ExpreS2 technology. This vaccine technology has the potential to mimic a virus to the body’s immune system, giving the optimal stimulus to generate a fast, long-lasting immune response that offers a highly-efficacious protection. Importantly, the production of the vaccine technology can be readily scaled to commercial quantities and AdaptVac is working with AGC Biologics for the manufacture and scale-up of the vaccine. The current plan is to initiate a clinical study before the end of 2020.
AdaptVac has now entered into an exclusive head of terms agreement with Bavarian Nordic, a global leader in the development, manufacture and commercialization of life-saving vaccines, to license the COVID-19 vaccine. The parties seek to enter into the final license agreement within the next two months. Upon execution of a final license agreement, Bavarian Nordic will pay AdaptVac an initial upfront payment in addition to future development and sales milestones and royalties. ExpreS2ion will retain a portion of the future milestone payments and royalties of AdaptVac’s revenue stream.
ExpreS2ion’s CEO Bent Frandsen comments:
“Since embarking on the COVID-19 vaccine utilizing advantageous technologies based on AdaptVac’s capsid VLP and ExpreS2ion’s ExpreS2 platforms, we, together with AdaptVac, have worked intensely on developing a uniqe SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. It will be very fitting to have Bavarian Nordic join the vaccine programme. They have the late-clinical stage and market expertise necessary to lead the vaccine to the public as soon as possible”.
About Bavarian Nordic
Bavarian Nordic is a fully integrated biotechnology company focused on the development, manufacture and commercialization of life-saving vaccines. Bavarian Nordic is a global leader in smallpox vaccines and have been a long-term supplier to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile of a non-replicating smallpox vaccine, which has been approved by the FDA, also for the protection against monkeypox. Their commercial product portfolio furthermore contains market-leading vaccines against rabies and tick-borne encephalitis. Using their live virus vaccine platform technology, MVA-BN®, they have created a diverse portfolio of proprietary and partnered product candidates designed to save and improve lives by unlocking the power of the immune system, including an investigational Ebola vaccine, licensed to Janssen.
About the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak
A novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China in late December 2019 and declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11th, 2020. The COVID-19 Coronavirus is a part of the same family as SARS and MERS, and there have been more than 3.5 million confirmed cases and over 243 000 deaths reported as of May 5th, 2020. The latest situation updates are available on the WHO web page: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.
About AdaptVac
AdaptVac is a joint venture between ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies and NextGen Vaccines, owned by the inventors of the novel proprietary and ground-breaking capsid virus-like particle (cVLP) platform technology spun out from the University of Copenhagen. The Company aims to accelerate the development of highly efficient therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines within high value segments of oncology, infectious diseases and immunological disorders. Granting of the core patent in the U.S. has expanded AdaptVac’s patent protection to include our entire pipeline of vaccines and immunotherapies in development.
About the PREVENT-nCoV consortium
ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies and AdaptVac are members of the PREVENT-nCoV consortium that earlier this year received an EU Horizon 2020 grant to rapidly advance a unique cVLP vaccine candidate against COVID-19 into the clinic. In addition to to ExpreS2ion and AdaptVac, the consortium members are Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Institute for Tropical Medicine (ITM) at University of Tübingen, The Department of Immunology and Microbiology (ISIM) at University of Copenhagen, and the Laboratory of Virology at Wageningen University.
Certified Adviser
Svensk Kapitalmarknadsgranskning AB
Telefon: +46 11 32 30 732
E-post: ca@skmg.se
For further information about ExpreS2ion, please contact:
Bent U. Frandsen, CEO
Telephone: +45 4256 6869
E-mail: buf@expres2ionbio.com
This press release contains information that ExpreS2ion is obligated to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication through the agency of the contact person set out above on May 06, 2020.
About ExpreS2ion
ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies ApS is a fully owned Danish subsidiary of ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB with company register number 559033-3729. ExpreS2ion has developed a unique technology platform, ExpreS2, for fast and efficient non-clinical development and production of complex proteins for new vaccines and diagnostics. ExpreS2 is regulatorily validated for clinical supply. The platform includes functionally modified glycosylation variants for enhanced immunogenicity and pharmacokinetics. Since 2010, the Company has produced more than 300 proteins and 40 virus-like particles (VLPs) in collaboration with leading research institutions and companies. Since 2017, ExpreS2ion develops novel VLP based vaccines through its joint venture AdaptVac ApS. For additional information, please visit www.expres2ionbio.com and www.adaptvac.com.