A health worker prepares a dose of the Novavax vaccine as the Dutch health service organization begins the Novavax vaccination program on March 21, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands.
Patrick van Cutwijk | Getty Images
Novavax said on Friday it had signed on Multi-billion dollar deal With French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to co-market the company’s Covid vaccine starting next year and develop combination shots targeting coronavirus and influenza, among other efforts.
The licensing agreement will allow Novavax to lift its “persistence” warning, which it does first Issued In February 2023 due to doubts 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 view the vaccine as a valuable alternative for people who do not want to take the messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.
Part of the deal allows Sanofi to use Novavax’s Covid vaccine and leading vaccine technology. Matrix Assistant-MTo develop new vaccine products. Sanofi will pay Novavax an upfront payment of $500 million and up to $700 million in payments for the development, regulatory and launch phases.
That total is roughly double Novavax’s current market cap of $627 million.
Novavax is also entitled to royalty payments on Sanofi’s sales of its Covid vaccine and combination doses targeting coronavirus and influenza. Novavax will also receive additional launch and sales payments of up to $200 million, along with royalties, for each product Sanofi develops using the Matrix-M adjuvant.
Under the deal, Sanofi will also take a less than 5% stake in Novavax.
“It really helps our business. It keeps us well-capitalized, removes ongoing attention, and gives us the opportunity to pivot our strategy more toward what we’re best at — to create additional value for all of our stakeholders, including our shareholders,” Jacobs told CNBC.
The deal will also help the company achieve its mission of improving global public health through its vaccine technology platform “at a pace and at a scale we could never do if we kept it all to ourselves” due to a lack of resources, capital and expertise. Jacobs said Scope.
Novavax will lead the marketing 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 marketing in countries with which Novavax has existing partnership agreements, including India, Japan and South Korea. , along with countries that have concluded advanced Covid vaccine purchase agreements with the company.
As a large pharmaceutical company, Sanofi could increase its market share and presence of Novavax’s Covid vaccine, which would expand patients’ access to the shot, Jacobs said.
The deal also allows Sanofi to develop products that combine its flu shot or other in-house vaccines with Novavax’s Covid vaccine. Sanofi can also use Novavax’s Matrix-M adjuvant to develop new vaccine products.
It is worth noting that Sanofi will be solely responsible for developing and marketing any combination containing the influenza vaccine and the Covid vaccine from Novavax.
“With this agreement with a world leader like Sanofi, not only in commercialization but also in development, we believe this dramatically multiplies the opportunity to produce multiple new vaccines much more quickly,” Jacobs said.
Outside of the deal, Novavax expects to begin a late-stage trial of its combination vaccine targeting Covid and influenza and a standalone influenza vaccine later this year. Previously, Novavax said the trial would include only the combination vaccine.
“Now, our phase 3 trial, which we are on track to start in the second half of this year, will not have one potential licensable vaccine if we are successful, but two,” Jacob said, referring to the deal. “Frees up costs” and “opens up our organic pipeline.”
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