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Bavarian Nordic grants Janssen exclusive licence for multivalent MVA-BN Filovirus vaccine
22 October 2014 - 22 October 2014 - Danish biotech group Bavarian Nordic A/S (CPH:BAVA) disclosed Wednesday that it had signed a global licence and supply agreement with Dutch biotechnology company Crucell Holland BV, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of US Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), according to which Bavarian Nordic will grant Janssen an exclusive licence for its multivalent MVA-BN Filovirus vaccine candidate.

The vaccine was designed to protect against Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan and Marburg virus. Bavarian Nordic will receive an upfront payment of USD 25 million (EUR 19.692m) and is entitled to up to USD 20 million in development and regulatory milestones, along with royalties for commercial sales outside Africa. Janssen will be fully responsible for all costs connected to the development and commercialisation of the vaccine.

Furthermore, Bavarian Nordic will scale up its production and is targeting to manufacture over one million doses of the vaccine valued at USD 99.3 million, of which Janssen will make an upfront payment of USD 70.8 million. The remaining USD 28.5 million will be received pro rata with deliveries in 2015.

A combination vaccine regimen of Bavarian Nordic's multivalent MVA-BN Filovirus vaccine and Janssen's AdVac(R) technology recently demonstrated complete protection against Ebola in preclinical studies. Janssen will now undertake further clinical investigation of this regimen. Janssen is working closely with authorities as part of its prioritised efforts to make the vaccines available for emergency use to help contain the current outbreak in West Africa.

Through a private placement, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation will invest DKK 251 million (about USD 43 million) to subscribe for new shares of Bavarian Nordic. Further details on the subscription of shares will be disclosed separately.

Bavarian Nordic's CEO, Dr. Paul Chaplin, said that, as part of the company's ongoing work with the US Government, Bavarian Nordic has been developing potential vaccines against Ebola for several years now.

MVA-BN (Modified Vaccinia Ankara - Bavarian Nordic) is a patented vaccine platform technology of Bavarian Nordic. It is a robust and adaptable platform suitable for addressing a great variety of infectious diseases, including biological threats.

Along with developing MVA-BN as a safer smallpox vaccine (cleared in the EU and Canada) essential to protecting the immune-compromised population, Bavarian Nordic has carried out over a dozen preclinical and clinical trials of recombinant MVA-BN-based vaccines. Over 7,500 individuals, almost 1,000 of whom are immunocompromised, have been vaccinated with MVA-BN-based vaccines, demonstrating that the platform displays high immunogenicity and a favourable safety profile.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.788)
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