Under the co-operative R&D agreement, BN ImmunoTherapeutics has rights to exclusively license intellectual property that results from this collaboration.
Bavarian Nordic will in the future explore opportunities for extending this collaboration to further develop its cancer projects. By combining Bavarian Nordic’s expertise within cancer vaccine development with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the company said that it is confident that this collaboration will result in new and innovative solutions to a disease area with high unmet medical needs as well as expand and accelerate Bavarian Nordic’s cancer activities.
Through the collaboration and a license agreement with the US Public Health Service, the company has obtained rights to intellectual property rights covering a prostate cancer vaccine product candidate in late Phase II clinical development. Data from key clinical studies with this vaccine candidate are currently being evaluated. Later in 2008 the company said that it will inform the market about how this development project will have a future in the pipeline of Bavarian Nordic.
Anders Hedegaard, president and CEO of Bavarian Nordic, said: “In the collaboration with NCI, Bavarian Nordic benefits from the enormous expertise in cancer therapeutics development that is present in the NCI organization. This will truly strengthen cancer as a strategic focus area in years to come, in line with our outlined strategy.”