TechBio company Evaxion A/S (EVAX) announced Thursday it has out-licensed its vaccine candidate EVX-B3 to Merck & Co., Inc. or MSD (MRK), as per the option and license agreement entered between the two companies in September 2024.
Evaxion will receive a cash payment of $7.5 million and will be eligible for future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments of up to $592 million, as well as royalties on net sales. MSD will assume full responsibility and carry all costs for the further development of the EVX-B3 vaccine.
EVX-B3, currently in preclinical development, aims to address a serious global medical issue, targeting a pathogen associated with repeated infections, increasing incidence and often serious medical complications, and for which no vaccines are currently available.
Identified with Evaxion's AI-Immunology platform, EVX-B3 showcases the platform's unique ability to uncover novel targets that would otherwise remain undiscovered.
The cash payment of $7.5 million extends Evaxion's cash runway into the first half of 2027.
EVX-B3 was discovered and developed in a collaboration between Evaxion and MSD originally established in September 2023. A year later, the collaboration was expanded through the option and license agreement also covering EVX-B2, a preclinical vaccine candidate against Gonorrhea.
Evaxion and MSD have agreed to extend the evaluation period for EVX-B2 as an amendment to the option and license agreement. The extension follows an expansion of the initial evaluation plan encompassing further experiments. Consequently, a decision on potential in-licensing of EVX-B2 by MSD is now expected in the first half of 2026.
Should MSD exercise the option on EVX-B2, Evaxion will receive a cash payment of $2.5 million and be eligible for future development, regulatory and sales milestone payments of up to $592 million as well as royalties on sales as for EVX-B3.
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