Vivalis and Aventis sign licence agreement for process improvement in manufacturing vaccines
Focus on "Large-scale production for HIV and cancer vaccines."
Aventis revealed a commercial research, option and licence agreement with Vivalis to combine the ALVAC canarypox virus platform of Aventis Pasteur and Vivalis’ proprietary avian stem cell platform.
The deal will allow Aventis Pasteur to improve its large-scale production of several ALVAC vaccine candidates for HIV and cancer treatment.
As a further option Aventis Pasteur may use Vivalis stem cell lines for production of another major virus vaccine.
Aventis sees the Vivalis avian stem cell technology, now at an early stage of development, as a way to scale-up its production of a range of vaccines.
Commenting on the move, Jeffrey Almond, senior vice president, Global Research and External Research & Development at Aventis Pasteur points out: “Several ALVAC candidate vaccines are now moving forward in clinical development and we need to consider novel large-scale production methods.”
Precise commercial terms of the agreement are confidential, but it is thought the agreement entails an upfront payment, milestone payments and royalties for Vivalis.
Franck Grimaud, CEO of Vivalis and Alain Munoz, Vivalis board member sees the collaborative deal with Aventis, "an established player in the vaccine field", as providing: "further endorsement of our stem cell line technology in the vaccine industry.”
Keywords : Aventis Pasteur Vivalis Vaccine manufacture Process improvement Large-scale production Licence agreement HIV Cancer
