A few months ago, the article “An Anglo-French Partnership To Cure Hepatitis B” related Valneva partnerships with Immune Targeting Systems. Today Valneva, a leading pure play vaccines biotech company is again on the front of the stage by announcing the exclusive license agreement with the Chinese company Jianshun Biosciences to commercialize Valneva’s EB66 cell line for the manufacturing of human and veterinary vaccines in People’s Republic of China only.
China, as an emerging vaccine market, represents a major opportunity for Valneva. The government has made it a priority to better protect the population from diseases, especially in endemic areas and China’s vaccine manufacturers are moving ahead to become global suppliers of affordable vaccines. China’s human vaccine market is comprised of 42 vaccine manufacturers and in 2013 the total amount of vaccines manufactured in China added up to nearly 755 million doses. Chinese vaccine manufacturers consist of state-owned enterprises, private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises.
With this agreement, Valneva remains the full owner of the EB66 platform and will continue to license its technology outside China. Jianshun Biosciences Ltd is granted rights to sublicense Valneva’s EB66 cell line to Chinese vaccine companies, which will then be able to develop, manufacture and commercialize, in the People’s Republic of China Territory only, human and veterinary viral vaccines using the EB66 cell line. Valneva will receive an upfront license payment of EUR 2.5 million and an additional payment of €0.5M in 2016, as well as annual maintenance fees and 50% of total revenues payable to Jianshun Biosciences Ltd from its sub licensees.
Thomas Lingelbach, President and Chief Executive Officer and Franck Grimaud, President and Chief Business Officer of Valneva, commented “This agreement is an important step forward in the international roll-out of our EB66® platform and we think this is now the right time to address the Chinese market. We are very pleased to collaborate with Jianshun Biosciences Ltd and are convinced that Jianshun Biosciences Ltd and its CEO, Dr Luo Shun, are the right partners to promote our cutting edge technology amongst the local vaccine industry, which is booming.”
To date, Valneva has more than 35 license agreements with the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies for the use of its EB66 vaccine production platform in both human and animal health vaccines. Valneva’s proprietary platform has enabled three veterinary vaccines and one human vaccine to be commercialized.