Under the terms of the transaction agreement, GSK has received an upfront payment of €308m ($345m) and Bavarian Nordic is expected to pay a total of up to €955m ($1.06bn) in future milestone payments.
Bavarian Nordic has initially financed the upfront payment using its existing cash and bridge financing provided by Citi and Nordea.
GSK said that its decision to divest the vaccine brands would support its plans to focus and reinvest in growth assets, advancements and a streamlined supply chain in its vaccines business.
Rabipur is a life-saving vaccine, indicated both in persons bitten by suspect animals (PEP) and non-immune subjects at risk of rabies (PrEP). The vaccine has 30 years of market experience, supported by wide-ranging clinical and safety evidence, and WHO pre-qualification.
Encepur is indicated for active immunization against tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) and has unique dosing flexibility, based on efficacy and long-term persistence data.
Bavarian Nordic is a Denmark-based fully integrated biotechnology company focused on the development of advanced therapies for infectious diseases and cancer.
The company has created a diverse range of product candidates, using its live virus vaccine platform technology MVA-BN, to improve the public health, and address the unmet medical needs.
It has developed a set of active cancer immunotherapies, intended to provoke an anti-cancer immune response to modify the disease course and maintain a favourable benefit-risk profile simultaneously.
Bavarian Nordic president and chief executive officer Paul Chaplin said: “With the acquisition now completed, we can truly begin the commercial transformation of Bavarian Nordic, driven by established and proven commercial products, which along with our smallpox and monkeypox vaccine create a leading infectious disease franchise that will drive sustained profits and growth in the years ahead.”
The infectious disease pipeline of the company includes an advanced RSV program, along with vaccine candidates for Ebola, HPV, HBV and HIV, developed under partnership with Janssen.
Furthermore, Bavarian Nordic had a long-standing collaboration with the US government to develop and supply the only FDA-approved, non-replicating smallpox vaccine.