GSK Acquires Global Rights For MRNA Vaccines For Influenza & COVID-19 In CureVac Deal - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - GSK plc (GSK, GSK.L) and CureVac N.V. (CVAC) announced that they have restructured their current collaboration through a new licensing agreement. This allows both companies to prioritize investment and concentrate on their respective mRNA development activities.

As per the terms of the new agreement, GSK will assume full control of developing and manufacturing mRNA candidate vaccines for influenza and COVID-19, including combinations. GSK will have worldwide rights to commercialise the candidate vaccines.

GSK continues to develop and optimise its mRNA capabilities through investments and partnerships, including in AI/ML-based sequence optimisation, nanoparticle design and manufacturing.

CureVac will receive an upfront payment of 400 million euros and up to an additional 1.05 billion euros in development, regulatory and sales milestones and tiered royalties in the high single to low teens range. The new agreement replaces all previous financial considerations from the prior collaboration agreement between GSK and CureVac.

CureVac further retains exclusive rights to the additional undisclosed and preclinically validated infectious disease targets from the prior collaboration together with the freedom to independently develop and partner mRNA vaccines in any other infectious disease or other indication.

CureVac said its ongoing patent litigation against Pfizer/BioNTech is unaffected by the new agreement.

Since 2020, GSK and CureVac have collaborated on the development of mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases. Together, they have advanced vaccine candidates for seasonal influenza and COVID-19 to phase II, with an avian influenza candidate in phase I clinical development. The candidates utilize CureVac's proprietary second-generation mRNA backbone.