The British pharmaceutical company GSK and German biotech CureVac they announced that they have restructured their existing partnership into a new licensing agreementallowing each company to prioritize investments and focus their respective mRNA development efforts. Since 2020, GSK and CureVac have been working together to develop mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases. Through this collaboration, they currently have seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccine candidates in Phase II and avian influenza in Phase I clinical development. All candidates are based on CureVac’s proprietary second-generation mRNA backbone.
In particular, GSK now acquires all rights to develop, produce and market globally mRNA vaccine candidates for influenza and COVID-19, including combinations.
CureVac receives €400 million in advance and up to an additional €1.05 billion in payments for development, regulatory and sales milestones, as well as tiered royalties; all previous economic considerations arising from the previous collaboration agreement are replaced.
“We are excited about our influenza/COVID-19 programs and the opportunity to develop best-in-class mRNA vaccines to change the standard of care,” he commented. Tony Wood, GSK Chief Scientific Officer – With this new agreement, we will apply GSK’s capabilities, partnerships and intellectual property strategies to CureVac’s technology, to rapidly deliver these promising vaccines.”
