Baxter signs licensing agreement with BioVeris

Baxter Healthcare has signed a technology licensing agreement with BioVeris whereby that company has received non-exclusive global patent rights and information for the use of Neisseria meningitidis group C vaccine as a constituent part in new vaccine candidates.

These candidates will use the Neisseria meningitidis group C constituents in conjunction with other vaccine candidate products to form new vaccines for protection against meningitis and sepsis in order to reduce the number of inoculations required by children.

In return, Baxter will receive a licence issue fee, in addition to milestone payments following clinical trials, royalties on product sales and a minimum annual royalty from 2011.

Through licensing agreements with Baxter and other pharmaceutical companies, BioVeris currently has the rights to commercialise products with the potential for prevention, diagnosis and treatment of group A and B streptococci, pneumococci and group B meningococci.

“The vaccine candidates covered by the new technology license agreement are similarly based on a conjugate technology platform and also include recombinant protein antigens,” BioVeris reports.

It also forecast that these new vaccine candidates will add to the company’s existing vaccine candidate portfolio and intellectual property.

Baxter UK received a contract from the National Health Service in February 2006 for the production of two million doses of the H5N1 influenza vaccine candidate.