Medicago and Acambis to collaborate

Medicago will receive milestone payments from Acambis to assess the feasibility of using Medicago’s Proficia protein technology for the production of vaccines.

“We believe that our Proficia technology presents competitive advantages over traditional vaccine manufacturing technologies for cost-effective production of recombinant vaccines. This agreement represents significant progress as Medicago enters the vaccine field,” commented Mr Andy Sheldon, Medicago’s president and CEO.

Medico say that the efficiency and flexibility of its protein technology provides several advantages for vaccine manufacturing compared to cell culture and other biological expression systems, including a reduced contamination risk, lower production costs, and fast development time lines.

The collaboration is some better news for Acambis which is currently being investigated after the Danish biopharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic alleged that Acambis’ MVA smallpox vaccine that it markets in the US infringes on patents owned by the Danish company.