A healthcare worker prepares a dose of the Novavax vaccine as the Dutch Health Services Organization begins the Novavax vaccination program on March 21, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands.
Patricio Van Katwijk | fake images
Novavax On Friday it said it had signed a multimillion-dollar deal with a French pharmaceutical company. sanafi co-market the company's Covid vaccine starting next year and develop combination shots targeting coronavirus and flu, among other efforts.
The licensing deal will allow Novavax to lift its “going concern” warning, which it first issued in February 2023 because it had concerns about its ability to continue operating, Novavax CEO John Jacobs told CNBC. In an interview.
It marks a turning point for the struggling vaccine maker and its protein-based Covid shot. Health officials see the vaccine as a valuable alternative for people who do not want to receive mRNA injections. Pfizer and modern.
Part of the deal allows Sanofi to use Novavax's Covid shot and its flagship vaccine technology, Matrix-M adjuvant, to develop new vaccine products. Sanofi will pay Novavax an upfront payment of $500 million and up to $700 million in development, regulatory and launch milestone payments.
That total is roughly double Novavax's current market capitalization of $627 million.
Novavax is also entitled to receive royalty payments on Sanofi's sales of its Covid vaccine and combination coronavirus and flu shots. Novavax will also receive additional launch and milestone sales payments of up to $200 million, along with royalties, for each product Sanofi develops with the Matrix-M adjuvant.
Under the deal, Sanofi will also acquire a less than 5% stake in Novavax.
“It really helps our business. It keeps us well capitalized, it eliminates the going concern, it gives us the opportunity to orient our strategy more towards what we are best at: bringing additional value to all of our stakeholders, including our shareholders,” he said Jacobs to CNBC.
The deal will also help the company fulfill its mission of improving global public health with its vaccine technology platform “at a pace and scale we could never have achieved if we had kept it all to ourselves” due to a lack of resources, capital and reach, Jacobs said.
Terms of deal
Novavax will lead the commercialization of its Covid vaccine for the rest of this year and will transfer most of that responsibility to Sanofi in 2025. Sanofi will not oversee commercialization in countries with which Novavax has existing partnership agreements, including India, Japan and Korea from the south. , along with nations with advanced Covid vaccine purchase agreements with the company.
Jacobs said Sanofi, as a large pharmaceutical company, could increase the market share and presence of Novavax's Covid vaccine, which will expand patient access to the shot.
The deal also allows Sanofi to develop products that combine its flu vaccine or other internal vaccines with Novavax's Covid vaccine. Sanofi may also use Novavax's Matrix-M adjuvant to develop new vaccine products.
In particular, Sanofi will be solely responsible for the development and commercialization of any combination vaccine containing its flu vaccine and Novavax's Covid vaccine.
“Through this agreement with a global leader like Sanofi, not only in commercialization but also in development, we believe this greatly multiplies the opportunity to produce multiple new vaccines much more quickly,” Jacobs said.
Outside of the deal, Novavax hopes to begin a late-stage trial of its own combination vaccine targeting Covid and flu and its standalone flu vaccine later this year. Previously, Novavax said the trial would only include the combination vaccine.
“Now our phase three trial, which we are on track to launch in the second half of this year, will not only have one vaccine potentially authorized if we are successful, but it will have two,” Jacob said, highlighting the agreement. frees up costs” and “opens up our own organic portfolio.”
