GSK and CureVac, a Tübingen, Germany-based bio/pharmaceutical company, have restructured their existing collaboration into a new licensing agreement, allowing each company to prioritize investment and focus their respective mRNA development activities, in a deal worth up to $1.57 billion ($435 million upfront and $1.12 billion in milestone payments).   

Since 2020, GSK and CureVac have worked together to develop mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases. Through this collaboration, GSK and CureVac currently have vaccine candidates for seasonal influenza and COVID-19 in Phase II and avian influenza in Phase I clinical development. All candidates are based on CureVac’s proprietary second-generation mRNA backbone.

Under the new agreement, GSK will assume full control of developing and manufacturing these candidate vaccines. GSK will have worldwide rights to commercialize the candidate vaccines. The agreement represents the latest step in GSK’s ongoing investment in vaccine platform technologies, matching the best platform to each pathogen to develop best-in-class vaccines. mRNA is an adaptable vaccine technology with demonstrated application in emerging and changing viral pathogens due to its ability to support rapid strain change. GSK says it continues to develop and optimize its mRNA capabilities through investments and partnerships, including in artificial intelligence/machine learning-based sequence optimization, nanoparticle design, and manufacturing. 

CureVac will receive an upfront payment of EUR 400 million ($435 million) and up to an additional EUR 1.05 billion ($1.12 billion) 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’s ongoing patent litigation against Pfizer/BioNTech is unaffected by the new agreement. 

Source: CureVac