GSK restructures vaccine collaboration with CureVac

GSK announced on Wednesday that it has restructured its collaboration with CureVac into a new licensing agreement, granting GSK exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and globally commercialise mRNA-based candidate vaccines for influenza and Covid-19.

The FTSE 100 pharmaceutical giant said the agreement included vaccine combinations.

CureVac would receive an upfront payment of €400m, with potential additional payments up to €1.05bn based on development, regulatory, and sales milestones, alongside tiered royalties.

The collaboration, which started in 2020, had produced promising vaccine candidates for seasonal influenza, Covid-19 - currently in phase two trials - and avian influenza, in phase one trials, all using CureVac’s second-generation mRNA technology.

Under the new terms, GSK said it would take full control over the development and commercialisation of the vaccines, marking a significant step in its strategic investment in vaccine platform technologies.

CureVac retained exclusive rights to additional infectious disease targets identified during the prior collaboration, and would be able to independently develop and partner on mRNA vaccines for other diseases.

The ongoing patent litigation between CureVac and Pfizer-BioNTech remained unaffected by the new agreement.

“We are excited about our flu/Covid-19 programmes and the opportunity to develop best-in-class mRNA vaccines to change the standard of care,” said GSK’s chief scientific officer Tony Wood.

“With this new agreement, we will apply GSK's capabilities, partnerships and intellectual property to CureVac's technology, to deliver these promising vaccines at pace.”

At 0927 BST, shares in GSK were down 0.17% at 1,501p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.