February 11, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
GlaxoSmithKline has finally gone all in and acquired the rest of Swiss specialist vaccine company GlycoVaxyn for $190 million, after holding a minority stake in the company since 2012.
GlyxoVaxn’s portfolio includes a host of early stage vaccines aimed at inoculation against infections including pneumonia, pseudomonas, staphylococcus aureus and shigellosis.
The company’s renewed interest in GlycoVaxyn comes as the world’s debate about vaccines intensifies and Glaxo continues to look for bolt-on acquisitions that will beef up its vaccine portfolio. As such, Glaxo said in a statement it is looking to the Swiss firm’s assets as a boon to its early stage vaccine pipeline, as it attempts to create a simplified cojugated vaccine manufacturing process. GlycoVaxyn comes with an already built-in biological conjugation platform technology.
“This is an exciting opportunity to expand our research efforts to develop a new generation of vaccines for common and severe bacterial infections, for many of which there are currently no effective vaccines,” said Moncef Slaoui, chairman of vaccines at GSK, in a statement. “It reinforces our commitment to seek out and invest in great science and complements our proposed transaction with Novartis which will strengthen our leading position in vaccines.”
The new platform will aid in that quest, because Glaxo said it “has the potential to play an important role in the development of new prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for a range of bacterial diseases.”
Today’s deal means that GSK has now purchased all shares in GlycoVaxyn, which has been valued at $212 million. GlycoVaxyn was originally staked by life science venture capital firms including Sofinnova Partners, Index Ventures and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, but also received funding from the Wellcome Trust and through a collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
Turning over the reins to a large Big Pharma player seemed to be greeted with warmth by the company’s leaders.
“At GlycoVaxyn, we are delighted to be working even more closely with one of the leading vaccine companies in the world on the development of much needed vaccines,” said Philippe Dro, chief executive officer of GlycoVaxyn, in a statement.
BioSpace Temperature Poll
Who Do You Think Will Be Sanofi’s New CEO? French drugmaker Sanofi said Thursday that it will name a new chief executive in mere weeks, as it attempted to put to rest rumors that the company could not find any executives willing to take the reins after it unceremoniously ousted its previous CEO last fall. Who do you think will soon be crowned king? BioSpace wants your opinion!
